High accurate squareness measurement squareness method for ultra-precision machine based on error separation

Traditional measurement methods of squareness for ultra-precision motion stage have many limitations, especially the errors caused by the inaccuracy of standard specimens. On the basis of error separation, this paper presents a novel method to measure squareness with an optical square brick. The angles between the guideways and the four lines of brick section are measured based on the fact that sum of interior angle of a quadrilateral is 2π, and the squareness is obtained. A squareness measurement experiment was performed on a profilometer with a modified optical square brick. Experimental results show that the squareness accuracy between X and Y axes is not influenced by the accuracy of brick, and the measurement repeatability reaches 0.22 arcsec. Finally, a verification experiment to the proposed method was carried out with a high accurate standard specimen, and the error between the two methods is 1.06 arcsec. According to the error results and simulation analysis of the measurement system, the measurement error based on error separation is 0.06 arcsec. The proposed method is able to achieve a very high accurate squareness measurement with auxiliary components of normal accuracy, and can be applied to measure the accuracy class of sub-arcsec squareness.