An accurate probe pre-travel error compensation model for five-axis on-machine inspection system

On a five-axis CNC machine tool, the pretravel errors of touch-trigger probes are severely affected by gravity and must be compensated to ensure the required measurement accuracy. The situation is more complex than that of the three-axis on-machine inspection system. This paper proposes a simple and accurate modeling and compensation method for the probe pretravel error of a five-axis on-machine inspection system. First, the pretravel error for the 5-axis CNC tool is decoupled into three parts, which are analyzed based on the probe's mechanical structure. Then, a new calibration point selection strategy is proposed to obtain the accurate reference sphere center. Finally, we carry out calibration tests to validate the proposed method. The compensation results show that the proposed compensation method for the probe pretravel error under the influence of gravity (PPEUG) can improve the accuracy considerably.