Direct Numerical Control
DNC or direct numerical control is the method used in the shop floor to connect a number of CNC machine tools together and controlled by a single computer (PC). It is sometimes also called as distributed numerical control. In this system, the MCU of each of the CNC machine tool is directly under communication with the DNC computer as illustrated in Figure 8 while the individual machine tool is controlled by its MCU.
Figure 8 : Typical Direct Numerical Control Operation
Typical functions served by the DNC computer can be categorised into the following three groups:
- Communications
- Part program storage.
- Ancillary functions