The development history of CNC machine tools

After World War II, most of the production of manufacturing industry relies on manual operation, workers read the drawings, manual operation of machine tools, machining parts, with this way to produce products, high cost, low efficiency, quality is not guaranteed.
In the late 1940s, the United States has an engineer Parsons (John Parsons) conceived a method, punched holes in a cardboard card to indicate the need to process the geometry of the parts, using a hard card to control the action of the machine tool, at the time, this is just an idea.

In 1948, Parsons to the U.S. Air Force to show him this idea, the U.S. Air Force look after, expressed great interest, because the U.S. Air Force is looking for an advanced processing method, hoping to solve the problem of aircraft prototype processing, due to the complexity of the shape of the prototype, the precision requirements of the general equipment is difficult to adapt to, the U.S. Air Force immediately commissioned and sponsored by the United States of America, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to carry out research to develop this hard cardboard to control the action of the machine. The development of this hard cardboard to control the machine tool, finally in 1952, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Parsons, Inc. cooperation, the successful development of the first demonstration machine, to the 1960's simpler and more economical point control drilling machine, and linear control of CNC milling machine has been the rapid development of numerical control machine tools in the manufacturing sector gradually gained popularity.

1. the first generation of NC system was introduced in 1951, its control unit is mainly composed of a variety of valves and analog circuits, the first CNC machine tool was born in 1952, has been developed from the milling machine or lathe to machining centers, becoming a key device in modern manufacturing.
2. the second generation of NC systems produced in 1959, which mainly has a single transistor and other components.
3.The third generation of NC systems was introduced in 1965, and it used integrated circuit boards for the first time.
4. In fact, in 1964, the fourth generation of NC system has been developed, that is, we are very familiar with the computer numerical control system (CNC control system).
In 1975, the NC system adopted a powerful microprocessor, which is the fifth generation NC system.
6. the sixth generation NC system uses the current integrated manufacturing system (MIS) + DNC + flexible machining system (FMS)