Rotary tables significantly improve the flexibility and efficiency of multi-axis measuring devices and multi-axis machining centers by providing a quick positioning of workpieces. Large-scale rotary tables are designed and produced for increasing demands of measuring volume and load capacity in industries, such as wind energy, aerospace and shipbuilding. Although the performances of rotary tables have been improved, there still exist non-trivial error motions. Moreover, it is not clear whether and how the error motions of a rotary table change under various loads. The traditional calibration methods are not suitable to investigate the mentioned issues because of their complicated and nonflexible setups. A new calibration solution which provided a simple, quick and flexible setup, as well as a fully-automated measurement process, was proposed. The rotary table, the 3-axis measuring device and the artifact (circular ball plate) were calibrated simultaneously. A mathematical solution was developed, which covers all the deviation sources, occurring at the movement of a rotary axis. This solution was verified and validated by numerical simulations and by experimental comparison with a traditional method. The stability of this solution was investigated using the Monte Carlo simulation. The behaviors of rotary tables under symmetric and asymmetric loads were investigated experimentally. The simple calibration setup and developed evaluation procedure enabled a compensation of rotary table/axis deviations in a wide application field.
