Slow tool servo (STS) diamond turning is a well-developed technique for freeform optics machining. Due to low machining efficiency, fluctuations in side-feeding motion and redundant control points for large aperture optics, this paper reports a novel adaptive tool path generation (ATPG) for STS diamond turning. In ATPG, the sampling intervals both in feeding and cutting direction are independently controlled according to interpolation error and cutting residual tolerance. A smooth curve is approximated to the side-feeding motion for reducing the fluctuations in feeding direction. Comparison of surface generation of typical freeform surfaces with ATPG and commercial software DiffSys is conducted both theoretically and experimentally. The result demonstrates that the ATPG can effectively reduce the volume of control points, decrease the vibration of side-feeding motion and improve machining efficiency while surface quality is well maintained for large aperture freeform optics.
Keywords: freeform optics; large aperture optics; slow tool servo; tool path generation.