Geometric error compensation of five-axis ball-end milling based on tool orientation optimization and tool path smoothing

Geometric error compensation may affect the quality of the machined surface textures due to the arbitrary adjustment of cutter locations. This paper proposes one geometric error compensation of five-axis ball-end milling in order to reduce the influences on the machined textures, including the tool orientation optimization of single cutter location and the smoothing of the overall tool path. At first, tool center limitation method is introduced briefly with the construction of the new cutter location. Second, CSO (chicken swarm optimization)-based tool orientation optimization is proposed for geometric error compensation. The inclining angle and the rational angle around the nominal tool orientation are chosen as the chicken. The tool center limitation method is used for the calculation of the fitness of the chicken. Next, the smoothing of the whole tool path is established to avoid the mutation of rotation angles including the evaluation of the smoothness and the inserting and optimizing of the new cutter locations. Finally, simulation and cutting experiments are proposed on the SmartCNC500_DRTD machine tool to testify the effectiveness of the geometric error compensation.