Development of Vision Guided Grinding System for Diamond Turning Tools

Currently, most of the diamond turning tools used for precision machining are still manually manufactured, the profile accuracy of the diamond cutting edge depends on the operator’s experience and skill, so that the process need to be automated. Therefore in this research, an automated grinding system has been developed for the diamond turning tools, controlled by a vision system. The profile of the diamond turning tools is captured in real time via CCD camera. The deviation from an ideal circle is calculated and feedback to the controller, the grinding system then removes cutting edge of turning tool selectively to achieve high quality and high productivity.