Analysis of CNC software modules regarding parallelization capability

Abstract

The software design of current CNC systems is of limited suitability for real parallel execution on multicore systems. Even though CNC systems are rudimentarily designed in a modular way, a good load balancing and therefore an efficient use of multiple processor cores is not satisfactorily to be accomplished, as the modularization is not sophisticated enough. A parallelization of CNC functions and algorithms would remedy this deficit. This paper presents an analysis on which parts of a CNC system show the capability for parallelization. Furthermore an approach is presented on how the parallelization of a specific function, namely the look-ahead function, can be accomplished.