New developments and future prospects in commercial tool condition monitoring systems
Sebastian Bombiński, Joanna Kossakowska, Krzysztof Jemielniak
Abstract
The increasing demand for automation in machining processes, driven by escalating labor costs and stringent quality requirements, has made process monitoring an inevitable necessity. A considerable amount of research has been devoted to tool condition monitoring (TCM), with a steady stream of publications offering novel solutions. Conversely, while numerous commercial TCM systems (TCMS) are available on the market and some have been implemented in industry, reviews and comparisons of these systems remain scarce. The objective of the article is to fill this lacuna by providing an overview of the current state and future prospects of commercial TCMS. The article begins with a presentation of the objectives of TCMS, followed by a thorough presentation of commercially available TCMS. Separate sections are devoted to discussing the challenges faced by the sensors used in these systems and to analyzing the effectiveness of the strategies employed. A particular focus was placed on the existing gap between commercial TCMS systems and those presented in the scientific literature. Potential directions for the development of these systems were examined, including advancements in sensing technologies, signal feature extraction techniques, and the creation of artificial intelligence models founded upon large databases accumulated online thanks to the Industrial Internet of Things . These developments are expected to bring laboratory solutions closer to industrial applications.