Analysis of friction error in CNC machine tools based on electromechanical characteristics

Friction is a kind of inherent and nonlinear disturbance in feed systems, which inevitably deteriorates motion accuracy at velocity reversal. Position error caused by friction is integrally effected by three aspects of feed drives, including command, control, and mechanical subsystems. Unfortunately, the traditional analyses hardly consider all mentioned aspects. Especially, no research has been reported on control characteristic at reverse motion. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the generation mechanism of friction error of a feed drive based on the commercial computer numerical control with three-loop control structure and velocity feedforward and proportional–proportional–integral controllers. Firstly, the generation process of the friction error at velocity reversal is profoundly investigated. Based on it, a simplified control model is conducted to explain transition from presliding to sliding regimes. It is the bond of analyzing friction error from command, control, and mechanical subsystems. Subsequently, the processes of presliding, acceleration, and adjustment stages are analyzed. Moreover, analytical formulas are derived to predict the durations of three stages and describe the shape of friction error. Then, the contour errors of linear and circular motion caused by friction can be predicted online. Experiments are introduced to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods and formulations.