Design of a virtual environment as a tool for diagnosis and monitoring

This paper proposes a general methodology aiming at developing a virtual environment emulating the behaviour of a real machine-tool axis from a mechanical point of view. This design includes a modelling phase, taking into account bending modes, friction phenomena, inverters and servomotors and cascaded control strategy. Unknown parameters are further deduced from a global identification procedure, based on limited feasible experiments. This simulator can thus be used to evaluate mechanical parts, and is also an efficient tool which enables developing a procedure for a periodic diagnosis of the machine. This virtual environment is validated based on the particular example of a hobbing machine dedicated to gear cutting of car gearboxes.