G-code optimization algorithm and its application on Printed Circuit Board drilling

Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) machines are more and more used for a variety of tasks such as milling, drilling, lathing, etc. As many CNCs are programmed using G-Code, it is of great interest for this code to be close to the optimum, taking into consideration different metrics such as the total path length covered by the CNC head during the machining process or the total machining time. We propose an algorithm to optimize a large class of G-Codes, by reducing the total path length. As most of the machining operations require translations, our algorithm is applicable for many processes. In this paper we describe the algorithm and demonstrate its performance in the specific case of Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) drilling.