Real-time Thermal Error Compensation Strategy for Precision Machine tools

Abstract Present manufacturing trend is towards producing precision components with better accuracy. Machine errors like geometrical, thermal and process errors affect the component accuracy. Among these errors, thermal error contributes more than 50-60% of the total machining error. This paper mainly focuses on the development of a real-time thermal error compensation module for precision machine tools and talks about effective modeling of thermal errors, development of thermal error compensation model using feed-forward backpropagation neural network and also simplified model using regression analysis technique, algorithm development for real-time compensation and implementation of module onto the open architecture CNC controller. The developed module has been successfully tested on a Diamond Turning Machine (DTM) by machining the precision component and also verified the effectiveness of the module