Uncertainty analysis of on-machine motion and profile measurement with sensor reading errors

In this paper, the novel error separation technique (Fung E H K and Yang S M 2000 Meas. Sci. Technol. 11 1515–21) is evaluated by the uncertainty analysis when the measurement is subject to sensor reading errors. The variance of the resulting profile estimation error is investigated both in the frequency domain and in the spatial domain. Theoretical analysis and computer simulation reveal that the profile estimation error, though adversely affected by the sensor noise, is not cumulative in the sense that the error will not build up as a result of increasing the number of sample points as in the two-step method (Tanaka H and Sato H 1986 Trans. ASME, J. Eng. Ind. 108 176–82). Experiments are also performed to confirm the above finding.