Complete, Practical, and Rapid Volumetric Compensation Using a Laser Tracker

Abstract

Machine tool calibration has traditionally meant many hours, a shutdown, and a compensation table that is only valid where the measurements were taken. Philip Freeman and Sam Easley set out three goals – rapid calibration, true volumetric accuracy at every machine pose, and real-time compensation – and show how a laser tracker gets you there. The talk begins from first principles, separating accuracy from repeatability and asking how the links go together and how the joints move (the classic twenty-one errors), then builds one theory that serves both the machine-tool and the metrology view of the same problem.