Performance Improvement of the LM Device and Its Application to Precise Measurement of Motion Trajectories within a Small Range with a Machining Centre

In order to apply the LM device previously developed to precisely measuring small motion trajectories located on the different motion planes, three major improvements are successfully performed under the condition of completely maintaining the advantages of the device. These improvements include 1) development of a novel connection mechanism to smoothly attach the device to the spindle of a machining centre; 2) employment of a new data sampling method to achieve a high sampling frequency independent of the operating system of the control computer; and 3) proposal of a set-up method to conveniently install the device on the test machining centre with respect to different motion planes. Practical measurement experiment results with the improved device on a machining centre sufficiently demonstrate the effectiveness of the improvements and confirm several features including a very good response to small displacement close to the resolution of the device, high precision, repeatability and reliance. Moreover, based on the measurement results for a number of trajectories for a wide range of motion conditions, the error characteristics of small size motions are systematically discussed and the effect of the movement size and feed rate on the motion accuracy is verified for the machining centre tested.