Identification of location errors by a touch-trigger probe on five-axis machine tools with a tilting head

Location errors are considered as one class of the fundamental errors of five-axis machine tools. For the improvement of machining accuracy, it is important to propose an efficient and accurate identification method of location errors. This paper uses a touch-trigger probe and a testpiece to identify location errors of a five-axis machine tool with a tilting head. All the measuring procedures are performed based on the single setup of measuring equipment. A model-based decoupling algorithm of squareness errors of linear and rotary axes is proposed. Then, a new probing procedure is proposed based on this algorithm to increase the moving distances of linear axes without additionally auxiliary equipment. This basic idea can also be expanded to other machine configurations, for instances, the one with a tilting-rotary table which is also illustrated. The experimental results demonstrate that this method is efficient and accurate.