Tangential control

The tangential control enables the automatic alignment of the tool orientation to the tangent of the path. The tangent is determined in the projection of the path on the set principle plane. For example, the tool of a robot with the Cartesian degrees of freedom X, Y, Z, RotZ can thus be automatically aligned tangentially in the X-Y plane. Typical applications of tangential control include cutting a flat material with a knife, scribing a glass plate with a glass cutter, or milling with radius compensation in conjunction with a tool transformation.

The tangential control can be activated, parameterized and deactivated by SRL command. For further information, refer to chapter Setting tangential control. In addition, the G-code import supports the common G-codes for tangential control. For more information, refer to the chapters Special features of the Siemens Sinumerik dialect for 840D and Special features of the Beckhoff TwinCAT CNC.

A special feature of the tangential control is the parameterizable lifting movement before the alignment movement in a stop point to the tangent of the next path segment as well as the corresponding lowering movement after the alignment movement. The idea here is that the tool is automatically lifted off the material for turning at one point to prevent damage to the tool and workpiece. If the lifting movement is not performed by robot axes, but by means of a pneumatic axis for example, freely programmable IEC code can also be executed in a CallFunction before and after the alignment movement. This can be used, for example, for controlling the pneumatic axis with corresponding binary feedback to the robot controller as soon as the robot movement is allowed to continue.

A detailed functional description can be found in chapter Tangential control.