Calibration of Laser Beam Direction for Inner Diameter Measuring Device

The laser triangulation method is one of the most advanced methods for large inner diameter measurement. Our research group proposed a kind of inner diameter measuring device that is principally composed of three laser displacement sensors known to be fixed in the same plane measurement position. It is necessary to calibrate the direction of the laser beams that are emitted by laser displacement sensors because they do not meet the theoretical model accurately. For the purpose of calibrating the direction of laser beams, a calibration method and mathematical model were proposed. The inner diameter measuring device is equipped with the spindle of the machine tool. The laser beams rotate and translate in the plane and constitute the rotary rays which are driven to scan the inner surface of the ring gauge. The direction calibration of the laser beams can be completed by the sensors' distance information and corresponding data processing method. The corresponding error sources are analyzed and the validity of the method is verified. After the calibration, the measurement error of the inner diameter measuring device reduced from +/- 25 mu m to +/- 15 mu m and the relative error was not more than 0.011%.