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Materials Today: Proceedings 22 (2020) 2386–2396 www.materialstoday.com/proceedings

ICMMM 2019

Real-time Thermal Error Compensation Strategy for Precision

Machine tools
Narendra Reddy Ta*, Shanmugaraj Vb, Prakash Vinodb, Gopi Krishna Sa
a
Scientist-C, CMTI, Tumkur Road, Bangalore-56022, India
b
HOD & Scientist-F, CMTI, Tumkur Road, Bangalore-560022, India

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.
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Conference on Materials Manufacturing and
Modelling, ICMMM – 2019.

Keywords: Precision Machine Tools, Neural Networks, Thermal Error Compensation, Diamond Turning

*
Narendra Reddy. Tel.: +91-8123788113.
E-mail address: narendra.cmti@nic.in

2214-7853 © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 2nd International Conference on Materials Manufacturing and Modelling,
ICMMM – 2019.
 T. Narendra Reddy et al. / Materials Today: Proceedings 22 (2020) 2386–2396 2387

Nomenclature

ANN Artificial Neural networks

DTM Diamond Turning Machine
iUPTM Intelligent Ultra Precision Turning Machine
SEA Spindle error Analyzer

1. Introduction

The major contributors for the geometrical errors are thermo mechanical errors of machine tools, caused by
external and internal heat sources2. The following are the possible sources of heat in Machine Tools1:
• Heat sources from the spindle motors and axes motors
• Heat generated by the machining process
• Heat induced by the environment because of external disturbances and people
• Axis of motion through friction/frictionless

Machine Tool manufacturers therefore try to reduce the heat sources either by superior designs such as
Frictionless motions like Aerostatic/ Hydrostatic spindle and slides or by using low thermal expansion materials like
Invar. However, the challenges to achieve those superior mechanisms involves design & manufacturing expertise,
which calls for critical assembly & testing facilities to achieve higher accuracies & better thermal stability. The only
concern about these mechanisms are bit expensive, hence software based error compensation techniques are
popularly used through statistical modeling techniques for real-time compensation Due to the advancements in CNC
controllers such as Open Architecture controllers which allows users to integrate different hardware modules
(Sensors, Actuators etc.,) and third party software programs (LabView, C/C++, Visual Basics etc.,) to compensate
the thermo deformation errors in real-time.
Dr.Jiri Vyroubal (2012) presented a method on error compensation of thermal deformation of spindle axis based
on decomposition analysis with the help of specially made measuring frame. The proposed methodology is simple
and it is suitable for slower control systems without strong computing power. Daisuke Kono et.al (2008) described a
Fourier series method for modeling the geometrical errors and compensating the machine tool errors by fine motion
mechanism on the Zaxis. Xiaoyan Zuo et.al, (2013) proposed an integrated error model for machine and
compensation on machine tools for geometrical errors using jacobian torsor theory. The application of the developed
method can be used for error compensation. Wu Hao, et.al (2008) proposed a model based on the five critical
temperature points using Genetic algorithm based back propagation artificial neural network (GA-ANN). The
performance of the compensation system has been applied experimentally on the workpiece to verify the
performance. Jin-Hyeon Lee et.al, proposed a strategy using fuzzy logic for thermal error modeling. The developed
modeling technique is applied to CNC machine by calculating the error model parameters for good accuracy and
robustness. Ma, C., Zhao,L., Mei, X. et al (2016) presented a work on the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN),
Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for improving the robustness of the thermal error
modeling. Miao, EM., Gong, YY., Niu, PC. et al., considered the temperature of optimal points and Z- axis thermal
error are measured for spindle. To identify the optimal points the gray correlation method & fuzzy clustering
analysis has been used. The support vector regression model has good prediction accuracy and its robustness is
strong while changing the environmental conditions. Narendra Reddy.T et.al, discussed on real-time thermal error
compensation for intelligent Ultra Precision Turning Machine (iUPTM) to measure and corrects the thermal
deformation errors in real-time.
Most of the research work is related to the thermal modeling for error compensation us-ing numerical models
such as regression analysis, neural networks, genetic algorithms and fuzzy logic. Few researchers extended their
work for improving the robustness of the thermal error modeling for mapping the machine tool displacement errors
due to the influence of temperature.
The present work is focused on development of thermal error strategy for precision ma-chine tools and it has been
implemented on spherical component to produce the precise parts within sub-micrometer dimensional accuracies.
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2. Problem statement: Thermal issue on a spherical component

The thermal error compensation module has been experimented on a precision spherical component using
Diamond Turning Machine (DTM). The machine is configured with independent 'T' configuration with Spindle
mounted on Z-axis and Diamond tool on X-axis. It has been designed to manufacture spherical component with
radius of 3.288 ± 0.001 mm with form error less than <1µm as shown in fig.1.

Fig.1. Spherical profile component machined in DTM

This component needs to be produced in huge quantity. During the production, it is noted that the radius of the
component varies from 0.2 – 0.6 µm from component to component due to thermal deformations. Based on the
observations on the measured results, the radius of the component is measured periodically for every 5th component
using Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM). Once the component is measured, the radius correction is done
through X-axis offset correction. In summary, the X-offset corrections are done in sub-micron based on the trends,
which are noticed in CMM results on size w.r.t time as shown in fig.2. Hence, it was decided to correct the X-offsets
using real-time thermal error compensation using Neural Networks and Regressions technique.

Fig.2. Radius vs X-centering

3. Flow chart

The below flowchart is divided into two sections as shown in the following:
• Offline measurements for thermal mapping studies of the precision machine and neural network modeling
to compute the non-linear relationship between temperatures mounted at various parts of the machine and
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thermo deformation errors of the machine axis. 'C' programs are written for the neural network equations by
extracting weights and biases for real-time calculations.
• Real-time implementation (online) includes acquiring real-time monitoring of temperature data and
computation of deformation values based on the computed relationship. The deformation values are used
for modifying the commanded inputs in real-time by changing the work offsets/position offsets without
user intervention. The thermal error compensation module application runs in silent mode along with part
programs to correct the thermo mechanical errors of the machine.

3.1. Experimentation

The experimentations have been carried on precision turning machine, which is developed at CMTI.
Thermal Mapping: The optimal locations for temperature sensors have been identified for thermal mapping based on
the research The TMPA2S01 (Make: Redlion) temperature sensors (RTD) are mounted at various machine
elements i.e., Spindle Front, X-Slide, Z-Slide, Tool Holder, Air and Granite to monitor the temperature variations.
The experimental setup is shown in fig.3.

Fig 3. Experimental setup showing Temperatures and capacitive sensors

The capacitive sensors are used to measure the thermal deformation errors; these are mounted at three different
locations of the artifact/component, first one to measure displacement in Z-axis, second one is mounted to measure
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the deformation of the component and third is to measure drift due to the X-axis as shown in fig (3) and fig (4). The
difference between second and third capacitive sensor gives the deformation in radial direction (X-axis).

X1-Axis X2-Axis
Z-Axis

Fig 4 Schematic showing sensor mounting

Experimentations were carried at different loading conditions according to ISO-230-3:2001 i.e., ETVE Test,
Spindle running and axis running tests. Based on the experimental studies, ETVE test contributes more for the radius
error on the machined component as shown in fig5. The critical temperature sensors (X axis & Air temp.) have been
identified out of six temperature sensors, the same data has been used for error compensation for X-axis as in fig5.

Fig 5. Plot showing temperatures and displacement for X axis.

4. Modeling Techniques

Two modeling techniques have been used to compute the relationship between temperature sensors and
deformation errors:
• Neural Network Modeling
• Regression technique

Neural Network technique is used for multi-variable input and output with non-linear relationship, whereas
regression technique takes care of linear relationship between input and outputs. These techniques are very effective,
wherever the thermal data is highly reliable and repeatable.

4.1. Neural Network Modeling

The NN model is developed using MATLAB’s Neural Network Toolbox. The inputs and outputs of the NN
model are shown in fig.6. The Neural Network model uses multi-layer feed-forward backpropagation architecture
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with non-linear sigmoid functions (Tansig and Purelin), Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm training function, Mean
Square Error (MSE) function with 1000 iterations. The Neural Network architecture is as shown in fig7. After neural
network training, the error plot has been shown in fig.8 to validate the NN model.

X Temp
Neural Network Model X axis
Air

Fig 6. NN block diagram showing inputs and outputs for X-axis

Fig 7. Neural Network architecture for X-axis

Fig 8. Plot showing the temperature and deformation errors after NN training

With the validated model, key parameters are extracted and a 'C' program is written for temperature acquisition
and computation of thermal deformation values, which can be easily integrated with the open CNC. The developed
neural network thermal error compensation module has been tested through measurement (standalone) and also
applied on a spherical component which is maintained and brought down to <1µm for 6 hours on spherical
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component as shown in fig10 instead of 4µm for 4 hours duration. It is also noted that, developed module takes care
of displacement correction in both directions and also provide safety limits in imperfect conditions. It ensured that
NN model is ideal for estimating non-linear relationship between temperatures and thermal deformations.

4.2. Regression Modeling

The neural network model requires huge data for training, testing and validation as compared with regression
technique. The regression technique can be applied, where few temperature sensors are contributing thermal
deformation errors and their input-output relationship is linear. It is very simple to apply this technique in any
motion controller either by PLC software/ Motion controller software. The fig 9 shows the plot of displacement vs.
temp change vs. time along with regression predicted plot.

Fig.9. Plot showing the temperature and deformation errors over time

The X deformation error is computed using polynomial fitting as shown below

Predicted Profile (X-Error)=0.5127+5.545*T1+4.145*T1^2+0.9697*T1^3

Fig 10. Plot showing the temperature, deformation errors over time using SEA
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The fig.10 shows that after correction, the X axis error is maintained within 2 micrometers for 6 hours which have
been measured using Spindle Error Analyzer (SEA) along with temperature data. It shows that the regression
technique is effective for linear input (tempera-ture)-output (thermal deformation errors) relationship.

5. Implementation on Open CNC

5.1. Real-time Correction loop of RTOS

The real-time correction loop includes

• Real-time Temperature acquisition
• 'C' Program to read the real-time temperature values & computes the deformation values
• Write computed deformation values into the global variables
• Corrects the position errors due to thermal deformations with the help of motion program.

The real-time correction loop executes at 100msec intervals and updates the work-offset table based on the real-
time computations using temperature data as shown in Fig11. The work-offset values get modified on the fly before
every position command.

Fig 11. Real-time Correction loop of RTOS

5.2. Real-time implementation on multi-tasking motion controller

The motion controller utilizes the multitasking and multiprogramming feature, wherein Real-time thermal
compensation module ('C' program) runs in task2 and part program in task1, which allows operator more convenient
in executing the part programs without any intervention as shown in fig12. The real-time thermal error
compensation module is compiled and made it as an RTThermal.EXE windows application. The RTThermal.EXE is
configured to run in silent mode in Task2 of Motion controller.

Motion Controller Real-time thermal error

Part program /user compensation module (‘C’
program program) and offset correction

Task1 Task2

Fig 12. Real-time implementation on multi-tasking motion controller

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6. Thermal error compensation strategy for real-time correction

The thermal error compensation strategy as shown in fig.14 is that the temperature deviations are considered
instead of absolute temperatures for the computation of thermal deformations. Once the motion engine is ON, the
initial temperature values are considered as a reference values and those temperature values are recorded in separate
global variables T1, T2, T3 and T4. The task2 executable reads the temperatures in real-time and compared with
reference temperature values and the difference in values becomes input to the neural network and computes the
thermal deformation errors and set the global variables for X offset correction. The real-time thermal corrections are
taking place through global variables. The limits have been set for the temperature deviations to limit the position
offsets from protecting the faulty sensors. The module has been tested extensively for correcting the thermal
deformations in real-time without user intervention. Fig. 13 gives Flow chart of thermal error compensation strategy
for real-time correction.

Fig 13. Flow chart of thermal error compensation strategy for real-time correction
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7. Conclusion

The real-time thermal error compensation strategy has been successfully implemented on a Diamond Turning
Machine (DTM) and tested for its functionality on a precision component for radius correction.

Fig 14. Radius measurement after thermal error compensation

Neural Networks and regression techniques are suitable for computing the relationship between temperatures &
deformation values. The developed module for radius compensation has been validated by measuring the radius
using CMM & Spindle Error Analyzer tests. The spherical components were produced with repeatability in radius
measurement on accuracy less than 1µm for 50 components using thermal error compensation module without
CMM measurements support as shown in fig14. This strategy is very much useful for precision machine tools where
dimensional accuracies are critical. However, the real-time thermal error compensation is more accurate, when the
thermal data is repeatable and reliable

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Mr. N.Balashanmugam, Joint Director for his support in carrying out the
research work and also acknowledge Mr. H.S Phaniraj, Craftsman for his efforts in experimental setups.

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