A fine tool servo system for global position error compensation for a miniature ultra-precision lathe

There is an increasing demand for single-point diamond turning to manufacture micro components as well as micro features on a large workpiece surface. In order to obtain high accuracy and a fine surface finish of the large area workpiece, position control of machine tool has become the main concern to achieve the high precision position control. A coarse-fine servo system is able to provide a cost-effective solution. This system can provide information on the entire guidance errors profile data and simultaneously compensate the error in real-time by using the fine position control technique. In this study, a piezoelectric actuator based fine tool servo (FTS) system has been developed and it has been incorporated with a miniature ultra-precision lathe. A cost-effective position sensitivity detector (PSD) is integrated in the FTS design, which is able to measure the global straightness error of the translational slide accurately. The detected error signals are compensated by the FTS during the turning process. For better tracking performance, a proportional-integral (PI) feedback controller has been implemented and tested in this study. Experimental results show that the developed FTS can effectively and successfully compensate the micro waviness error which is caused by the x-axis translational slide of the miniature ultra-precision lathe. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.