A novel method for measuring squareness errors of multi-axis machine tools based on spherical S-shaped trajectories using a double ball bar

Abstract

This paper presents a novel method to identify the squareness errors of computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools based on double ball bar (DBB) measurements. A series of spherical S-shaped paths are proposed to measure the squareness errors, instead of the generally used circular detection paths since the presented method requires only one experimental setup, and three translation axes are linked, which is more convenient and comprehensive. In this article, the coordinate transformation method and the method for dividing experimental paths evenly are used to solve the asynchronization between actual motion and DBB sampling process. The experimental data is then combined with the product of exponential (POE) model to calculate the three CNC machine tool squareness errors and applied to a spherical spiral testing path with the compensation of the diagnosed errors. The effectiveness of the method is verified by comparing the experimental results before and after the compensation.