Autonomous machining – recent advances in process planning and control

While autonomous driving has come close to reality over the recent years, machining is still characterised by many manual tasks and prone to costly errors. In this article, an overview is given about the potential of autonomous machining and uprising technologies that support this vision. For that purpose, a definition of autonomous machine tools and the required elements is presented. Next, selected elements of an autonomous machine tool, e.g. sensory machine components and control loops, are discussed. Finally, some insights into ongoing research projects regarding the use of machine learning for process planning and control are given.