Electrode down-time is an important factor affecting the efficiency and stability of electrical discharge machining(EDM) process. In the research, a way of simulating the regulation of the electrode down-time in an EDM adaptive control system has been studied. All the simulations are performed on Matlab. The simulation results demonstrate that this adaptive controller by regulating electrode down-time can direct the gap state to follow the specified reference gap state with or without disturbances. Finally, the adaptive control scheme is also validated by experiments. The significance of the simulation of an EDM adaptive control system lies on the fact that it provides a convenient way to guide the actual production and provides a new study method for the research of EDM control strategy with no regard of experimental conditions.
