A novel methodology for predicting and identifying geometric errors of rotary axis in five-axis machine tools

The geometric errors of rotary axes are crucial error sources of a five-axis machine tool. They directly affect the machining accuracy, and therefore become one of the most important items for accuracy design. In this paper, a prediction and identification method for the geometric errors of rotary axes on a five-axis machine tool is proposed. The prediction is realized by calculating the mapping relationship between tolerances and geometric errors of rotary axes, which is based on exploring rotary axes’ motion regulation and Fourier series fitting. Then in order to figure out the practical geometric errors of rotary axes, the identifying model is established based on homogeneous transform matrix (HTM). Double ball-bar (DBB) is adopted to test error motions of rotary axes. Finally, a demonstration experiment has been conducted for verifying the effectiveness and precision of the proposed prediction model. The experimental results show that the predicting model is able to reflect the motion principle of rotary axes’ kinematic errors. The SSE, which expresses residual sum of squares between estimated value and identified point, of ez(c),δx(c),ey(c),δz(c),ex(c), and δy(c), are 7.7716 × 10−11, 1.2064 × 10−4, 2.7838 × 10−10, 2.9639 × 10−7, 1.8966 × 10−10, and 2.7838 × 10−10, respectively. And R2, who represent fitting equation’s coefficient of determination, of abovementioned geometric errors, are 0.8978, 0.9876, 0.9978, 0.9453, 0.9985, and 0.9978, respectively. The computing results show that two kinds of curves are basically coincide, and the proposed method is proven to be feasibility.