An optical method based auto-collimation for measuring five degrees of freedom error motions of rotary axis

The paper presents an optical method based on auto-collimation to simultaneously measure five degrees of freedom error motions of the rotary axis. The proposed method consists of the collimated lasers, beam splitters, focusing lens, quadrant photodiode detectors, a high precision steel ball, and a special mirror fixed to the rotary axis. The mathematical model is established byoptical ray tracing, and the corresponding optical path is also simulated by OpticStudio. Meanwhile, an adjusting mechanism for X-Y micro-displacement, based on the elastic deformation of the material, is designed to adjust the installation eccentricity error of the high-precision steel ball. The calibration results of the proposed system demonstrate that the displacement errors are +/- 0.25 mu m within the measuring range of +/- 10 mu m, and the tilt angle errors are +/- 0.6 arcsec within the measuring range of +/- 25 arcsec. Taking a direct drive (DD) motor as the test object, the radial error motions of the rotary axis range from -3.2 to 4.1 mu m, the axial error motions range from -4.9 to 4.7 mu m, and the tilt error motions around the X and Y axes range from -2.8 to 1.8 arcsec and -2.6 to 2.0 arcsec, respectively.