Geometric and quasi-static thermal error compensation for a laser digitizer equipped coordinate measuring machine

An emerging trend in dimensional inspection of manufactured parts is the use of coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) equipped with non-contact laser digitizers instead of traditional contact probes. Error mapping is generally proprietary to the CMM controller, and the accuracy of such a combined system is limited by the lack of integrated CMM/laser digitizer error compensation. This paper reports progress towards achieving such a system.Geometric error compensation measurements are made on a test machine at 20, 25 and 30 °C. Performance of the system was tested by measuring a special optically coated sphere ballbar artifact. The scan coordinates, the CMM axis scale positions and temperature were recorded simultaneously in real time. The CMM error compensation data was then used to post process the laser digitizer coordinates to obtain improved global part coordinates.Inclusion of the error compensation terms is shown to reduce the dispersion of results by 65 to 80%.