Step kinematic calibration of a 3-DOF planar parallel kinematic machine tool

This paper presents a novel step kinematic calibration method for a 3 degree-of-freedom (DOF) planar parallel kinematic machine tool, based on the minimal linear combinations (MLCs) of error parameters. The method using mapping of linear combinations of parameters in error transfer multi-parameters coupling system changes the modeling, identification and error compensation of geometric parameters in the general kinematic calibration into those of linear combinations of parameters. By using the four theorems of the MLCs, the sets of the MLCs that are respectively related to the relative precision and absolute precision are determined. All simple and feasible measurement methods in practice are given, and identification analysis of the set of the MLCs for each measurement is carried out. According to the identification analysis results, a step calibration including step measurement, step identification and step error compensation is determined by taking into account both measurement costs and observability. The experiment shows that the proposed method has the following merits: (1) the parameter errors that cannot influence precision are completely avoided; (2) it reflects the mapping of linear combinations of parameters more accurately and enhances the precision of identification; and (3) the method is robust, efficient and effective, so that the errors in position and orientation are kept at the same order of the measurement noise. Due to these merits, the present method is attractive for the 3-DOF planar parallel kinematic machine tool and can be also applied to other parallel kinematic machine tools with weakly nonlinear kinematics.