METROLOGIA-2003 – Metrologia para a Vida
Sociedade Brasileira de Metrologia (SBM)
Setembro 01−05, 2003, Recife, Pernambuco - BRASIL
UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS OF POSITIONAL DEVIATIONS OF CNC
MACHINE TOOLS
Ignacio Lira, George Cargill
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
Abstract: The evaluation of the measurement uncertainty is
an indispensable task in all calibration procedures. By
international accord, this is to be done in accordance with
the ISO Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in
Measurement (GUM). To measure the positional deviations
of computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine tools,
however, calibration laboratories will usually follow the
guidelines in ISO Standard 230-2, which does not comply
with the GUM. The main purpose of this paper is to present
an uncertainty evaluation scheme that is firmly grounded in
the GUM, and can therefore be of use as a guide to develop
appropriate uncertainty calculations in this and similar types
of calibrations.
Keywords : uncertainty analysis, calibration, machine tools,
dimensional metrology.
1. INTRODUCTION
Various international standards provide guidance to
calibrate and verify the performance of computer
numerically controlled (CNC) tool machines, such as
machining centers. In particular, ISO Standard 230-2 [1] is
accepted and used worldwide to determine the accuracy and
positional repeatability of numerically controlled axes in
machine tools; it may be used for type testing, acceptance
tests, comparison testing, periodic verification and machine
compensation.
The method recommended in ISO 230-2 involves repeated
measurements at predefined positions of the axis under test,
which results are used to determine the positional
deviations. The standard deviations of these measurements
are defined as the associated standard uncertainties, a result
which does not agree with the rules and recommendations
given in the ISO Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in
Measurement (GUM) [2].
In this paper we propose an uncertainty evaluation
procedure that differs from the method of ISO 230-2 on
several accounts: a) the measurement model is clearly
stated; b) from this model all relevant input quantities are
identified; c) whenever possible, the standard uncertainties
of these input quantities are derived following the
procedures in the GUM; and d) for some input quantities
that are modeled nonlinearly in terms of other quantities
special methods are used.
The outline of the paper is as follows: section 2 summarizes
the method in ISO 230-2, section 3 presents our proposal,
section 4 discusses the proposal and section 5 provides the
conclusions.
2. EVALUATION OF THE UNCERTAINTY IN THE
CALIBRATION OF CNC MACHINES ACCORDING
TO ISO 230-2
In the ISO 230-2 method the machine is programmed to
locate its moving part at a series of predefined target
positions along the axis under test. Fig. 1 shows a typical
test cycle; it consists of n unidirectional approaches in both
the positive (increasing) and negative (decreasing) directions
to m target positions. Symbols ↑ and ↓ are customarily used
to represent each of these directions of movement.
For point i in approach j, the positional deviation d ij is
defined as the difference between the measured position lij
and the target position p i , i.e.,
d ij = lij – pi (1)
The unidirectional averages d i ↑ and d i ↓ are then computed.
Next, the experimental variances
si 2 ↑ = ∑ j (d ij ↑ – d i ↑) 2 / ( n – 1) (2a)
and
si 2 ↓ = ∑ j (d ij ↓ – d i ↓) 2 / ( n – 1) (2b)
are calculated, these are taken to be the squares of the
undirectional standard uncertainties of the positional
deviations. Finally, ISO 230-2 recommends to double the
standard deviations to obtain the expanded uncertainties,
which are to be stated as the final uncertainty result in the
calibration certificate, possibly in graphic form.
ISO 230-2 defines also a number of other parameters, such
as repeatability (R) and accuracy (A). These other
parameters will not be addressed here, since from the
discussion above it should be clear that the method in ISO
230-2 is at odds with the GUM: first, the variances (2) apply
to each individually measured deviation, not to the reported
averages; and second, a number of uncertainty sources are
not considered, namely: resolution, misalignment,
temperature differences and calibration of the measuring
equipment.
3. A PROPOSAL TO EVALUATE THE
UNCERTAINTY IN THE CALIBRATION OF CNC
MACHINES
In order to evaluate any measurement uncertainty, the
quantities of interest must be defined precisely through one
or more measurement models. When the models are linear
or weekly nonlinear, they allow to express the standard
uncertainties of the output quantities in terms of the standard
uncertainties of the input quantities by using the so-called
law of propagation of uncertainties, LPU [2,3]. Strictly,
when applying this law all correlations between input
quantities should be taken into account. In the present case,
however, the common influences that may introduce
interdependencies between measurements, such as
barometric pressure, temperature and humidity, are assumed
to have negligible effects.
3.1. Basic model
The positional deviations will be modeled as
d i = li − p i
where the li ´s are the corrected indications of the
measurement system, the p i ´s are the corrected target
positions and the symbol  stands for either ↑ or ↓.
In turn, the models for the quantities li  and p i should
include all conceivable random and systematic effects.
While this depends on the particulars of the measurement
system, it is reasonable to assume that measurements are in
general affected or limited by temperature, alignment,
resolution and calibration of the test equipment. Therefore
we write
li = ft fa l mi + cc + cr m
p i = p ni + crs
where lmi  represents the arithmetic mean of the positions
indicated by the measurement system in the n unidirectional
approaches to point p i , ft is a correction factor to compensate
for thermal expansion of the positioning scale, fa is a
correction factor to compensate for possible misalignment of
the measurement system, cc is a correction associated with
the calibration of the measurement system, crm is a
correction associated with the resolution of the measurement
system, p ni is the nominal (programmed) target position and
crs is a correction associated with the resolution of the axis
scale. Replacing (4) and (5) in (3), using the LPU and
recognizing that no uncertainty should be attached to the
nominal positions, we obtain
u 2 [d i ] = (ft fa u[lmi ]) 2 + (fa lmi u[ft ]) 2 + (ft lmi u[fa]) 2 + u 2 [cc] +
u 2 [crm] + u 2 [crs]
where the symbol  has been suppressed for clarity
According to the GUM, the squares of the standard
uncertainties of the averages lmi are evaluated as the
variances (2) divided by the number n of unidirectional
measurements. Thus
u 2 [lmi ] = si 2 / n
This is the well-known type A evaluation of standard
uncertainty [2]; it applies to a quantity that is measured
repeatedly. The other quantities should instead be modeled
in terms of other quantities, whenever possible, or their
uncertainties should be obtained as the standard deviations
of the applicable probability density functions (pdfs), the so-
called type B procedure.
3.2. Correction quantities
The thermal correction factor ft is usually modeled as
ft = (1 + α∆T )−1 (8)
where α is the linear coefficient of thermal expansion for the
scale’s material and ∆T is the difference between its
temperature and the reference temperature (normally 20 °C).
Application of the LPU then gives
u 2 [ f t ] = ( ∆T 2 u 2 [α] + α2 u 2 [∆T] ) f t 4 (9)
Depending on the calibration procedure, the temperature
difference should be measured at several places along the
(3) scale and at various times, for example, at each reversal of
the measurement cycle. Doing this allows to establish a
range of values wT for ∆T over which a rectangular pdf is
assumed. Thus we set
u 2 [∆T ] = wT2 /12 (10)
The coefficient α is normally not measured; its value is
imported from handbooks for the material one believes the
scale to be made off. The standard uncertainty u[α ] should
then be evaluated from a rectangular pdf whose width wα
has to be assigned depending on how well one knows the
material and on how well that material’s coefficient is
(4) known. In other words, wα corresponds to twice the
maximum possible error in the assignment of the value of α.
(5)
With this assumption we get
u 2 [α] = wα2 /12 (11)
It should be noted, however, that in the vicinity of ∆T = 0
equation (9) yields a value for u[ft ] that is independent of
the uncertainty in knowing α. This obviously unreasonable
result is due to the nonlinearity of the model for the thermal
expansion correction factor. Fortunately, unless wα is very
large, the non linearity of model (8) is weak and equation
(9) is adequate.
In turn, the alignment correction fa is modeled as
fa = cos θ (12)
where θ is the angle between the actual measurement
direction and the axis direction. Because of the form of (12)
(6) this correction factor is usually referred-to as the cosine
error. Application of the LPU gives
u[fa] = sin θ (13)
However, normally the best estimate for the misalignment
angle will be θ = 0, yielding u[fa] = 0 irrespective of the
uncertainty associated with θ. This is again an unreasonable
(7) result, and is due to the strong non-linearity of cos θ in the
vicinity of θ = 0. Therefore, we recommend to estimate fa
and its uncertainty from
fa = sin θmax / θmax (14)
u 2 [fa] = 1/2 (fa cos θmax + 1) − fa 2 (15)
where θmax is an upper bound for the maximum deviation
angle, whose value has to be established based on the
particulars of the measurement system. Since normally θmax
should be a small angle, fa should be nearly equal to 1 and
u[fa] nearly equal to zero. Equations (14) and (15) are
derived in [3].
The rest of the correction quantities are easier to evaluate.
The values of the resolution corrections crm and crs are both
taken as zero, but their standard uncertainties are evaluated
from rectangular pdfs of widths equal to each instrument’s
resolution, rm for the measurement system and rs for the axis
scale. Thus
u 2 [crm] = r m2 / 12 (16)
2 2
u [crs] = rs / 12 (17)
Finally, the calibration correction cc depends on the
instrument that is used to perform the measurements; its
value and associated standard uncertainty should normally
be obtained from the instrument’s calibration certificate,
thus providing the traceability for the calibration of the CNC
machine
4. DISCUSSION
From section 2 it is clear that ISO 230-2 considers the
repeatability of the measuring system as the only source of
uncertainty in the calibration of linear axes, and also that its
proposed evaluation method does not comply with the rules
in the GUM. Our proposal corrects these deficiencies: it
properly uses the type A procedure and includes other
relevant sources of uncertainty. Some uncertainty
contributions may of course be negligible in comparison
with the others, but this cannot be known a priori.
In this section we show some typical results obtained in the
calibration of a CNC machine using a laser interferometry
system. The measurement system resolution is rm = 0.01 µm
and the calibration certificate states that its relative error is er
= 0.1×10−7 with an expanded uncertainty U(er) = 2×10−7 and
a coverage factor k = 2. Therefore we take cci = − er p ni and
u[cci ] = U(er) p ni /2.
We used the system to calibrate the X axis of a CNC
mechanizing center with a scale resolution rs = 1 µm. The
programmed positions are shown in Table 1, these were
chosen with uneven spacing to avoid periodic sampling
errors. The temperature during calibration was (18 ± 0.5) o C,
such that ∆T = −2 o C (for a 20 o C reference temperature) and
wT = 1 o C. For the thermal expansion coefficient we took α=
11.7 × 10−6 oC−1 (for steel) with a maximum spread of 10 %
of this value to each side, giving wα = 2.34 × 10−6 oC−1 .
Finally, for θmax we chose 0.2o .
The measured deviations for a series of n = 5 positive
unidirectional approaches are given in Table 1, together with
the deviations computed from equation (3). Note that the
latter are quite different from the average of the indicated
deviations, this is due principally to the effect of the
temperature correction. Table 2 shows the numerical values
of each uncertainty term in the right-hand side of equation
(6). It is seen that, except for the target positions closest to
the axis´ origin, the contribution to the uncertainty of the
calibration and resolution corrections are very small, while
the contributions of the machine´s repeatability lmi , of the
temperature correction factor ft and of the alignment
correction factor fa, are of the same order of magnitude
5. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we have presented a detailed procedure to
evaluate the uncertainty in the calibration of positional
deviations of the linear axes of CNC machine tools. In
contrast with the evaluation method proposed in currently
used standard ISO 230-2, our method complies strictly with
the GUM´s recommendations: it is derived from a model for
the measurand, whose uncertainty is obtained through
application of the law of propagation of uncertainties
together with type A and B evaluation methods.
REFERENCES
[1] ISO 230-2: Test Code for Machine Tools. Determination of
Accuracy and Repeatability of Positioning Numerically
Controlled Axes. Geneva: International Organization for
Standardization, 1997.
[2] ISO Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement.
Geneva: International Organization for Standardization,
1995.
[3] Lira I. Evaluating the Uncertainty of Measurement:
Fundamentals and Practical Guidance. Bristol: Institute of
Physics Publishing, 2002.
Author: Dr Ignacio Lira, Departamento de Ingeniería Mecánica y
Metalúrgica, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Vicuña
Mackenna 4860, Santiago, Chile. Tel.: +56 2 686 4629, fax: +56 2
686 5828, email: ilira@ing.puc.cl.
Table 1: Measured and calculated deviations for a series of n =5 positive unidirectional approaches to m = 11 nominal positions.

i p ni d i1 ↑ d i2 ↑ d i3 ↑ d i4 ↑ d i5 ↑ di↑

mm µm

0 0.000 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

1 55.327 7.35 5.05 5.98 6.22 5.78 7.26

2 113.260 8.38 6.06 6.25 7.15 6.94 9.38

3 169.810 6.88 4.80 5.20 5.46 5.56 9.21

4 222.723 7.94 5.82 6.22 6.25 6.59 11.32

5 280.000 16.35 14.63 14.47 14.56 15.32 21.05

6 336.145 20.71 18.13 18.66 18.30 18.78 26.10

7 393.418 24.50 21.62 21.80 22.27 22.17 30.88

8 446.111 29.07 25.65 26.32 26.38 26.62 36.34

9 504.917 23.01 19.57 19.88 20.37 20.80 31.51

10 555.234 24.90 21.49 22.22 22.37 22.40 34.54

Table 2: Components of the standard uncertainty, in microns, associated with the positional deviations in Table 1.

i fT fa u[lmi ] fa lmi u[fT] fT lmi u[fa] u[cc] u[crm] u[crs] u[d i ]

0 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.003 0.289 0.29

1 0.374 0.201 0.101 0.006 0.003 0.289 0.52

2 0.410 0.412 0.206 0.011 0.003 0.289 0.68

3 0.351 0.618 0.308 0.017 0.003 0.289 0.83

4 0.365 0.810 0.405 0.022 0.003 0.289 1.02

5 0.355 1.019 0.509 0.028 0.003 0.289 1.23

6 0.464 1.223 0.611 0.034 0.003 0.289 1.47

7 0.521 1.431 0.715 0.039 0.003 0.289 1.71

8 0.588 1.623 0.810 0.045 0.003 0.289 1.93

9 0.608 1.837 0.917 0.050 0.003 0.289 2.16

10 0.580 2.020 1.009 0.056 0.003 0.289 2.35