The Development of REST API Gateway Application Using Unified CNC Interface Platform

As the manufacturing industry adopts smart technologies, the demand for industrial applications that can interact with various manufacturing equipment has increased. CNCs are the core units that control machine tools, which make up the majority of manufacturing sites. Therefore, communication with CNCs is essential for collecting machine tool status information. However, since each CNC manufacturer uses a different communication interface, implementing mutually exclusive CNC communication methods is necessary when developing industrial applications. To allow application developers to focus on functionality without having to consider heterogeneous CNC communications, a unified CNC interface platform called TORUS was developed and publicly released. However, because TORUS operates only on Windows OS, there are limitations to its integration with existing systems at manufacturing sites. To address this issue, a TORUS-based gateway application has been proposed. This paper explains the necessity and role of the gateway application and demonstrates how it can effectively lower entry barriers to research and development related to smart factories. It also presents an example of how TORUS can be utilized through the REST API, which is widely used in modern manufacturing environments. Additionally, it provides guidelines for developing TORUS gateway applications that support interfaces or protocols beyond the REST API.