The quest for the direct detection and observation of gravitational waves remains one of the lasting scientific challenges of the 20th century, and one that will continue on into the 21 st. Concepts and technologies are being developed that will, early in the new millennium, allow their direct observation for the first time. This will be the beginning of the gravitational wave astronomy revolution. The LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mISSIOn is one of the cornerstones of this revolution. Observing in the low-frequency band, it will provide information about our universe that cannot be gathered from the ground. This band contains sources fundamental to our understanding of how the universe began and operates. In turn, fundamental to the LISA mission is the concept of drag-free control. This provides the relatively undisturbed environment for the test-masses which form the references for the measurement of the gravitational waves. Without it the effect of gravitational waves would be but a whisper amongst a cacophony of disturbances. It is drag-free control for the LISA mission which forms the basis for the majority of this thesis. The research and development work carried out by the author has involved the development of a control model of the LISA dragfree control system to assess its feasibility. The author proposes a different approach to the problems involved from that suggested by other authors. It is shown that this approach, unlike those suggested in the mission baseline studies, fulfills the control requirements for the LISA mission. Technological risk assessment in general, as well as that associated with the LISA mission, is also considered.

The primary barrier to the production of better machined parts is machine tool error. Present day applications are requiring closer machine part tolerances. The errors in dimensional part accuracy derive from the machine, in this case, a vertical two axis CNC lathe. A two axis vertical lathe can be utilized to produce a variety of parts ranging from cylindrical features to spherical features. A vertical lathe requires a spindle to rotate the work at speeds reaching 3000rpm, while simultaneously requiring the machine tool to be positioned in such a manner to remove material and produce an accurate part. For this to be possible, the machine tool must be precisely controlled in order to produce the correct contours on the part. There are many sources of errors to be considered in the two axis vertical lathe. Each axis of importance contains six degrees of freedom. The machine has linear displacement, angular, spindle thermal drift, straightness, parallelism, orthogonal, machine tool offset and roundness error. These error components must be measured in order to determine the resultant error. The characterization of the machine addresses thermal behavior and geometric errors. This thesis presents the approach of determining the machine tool errors and using these errors to transform the actual tool path closer to the nominal tool path via compensation schemes. One of these schemes uses a laser interferometer in conjunction with a homogenous transformation matrix to construct the compensated path for a circular arc, facing and turning. The other scheme uses a ball bar system to directly construct the compensated tool path for a circular arc. Test parts were created to verify the improvement of the part accuracy using the compensated tool paths.

Linijinių skalių kalibravimo įrenginiuose vienu iš pagrindinių linijos padėties kalibravimo paklaidos sandų yra geometrinės komparatoriaus paklaidos. t.y. paklaidos, susijusios su karietėlės judesio nuokrypiais – jos mažais kampiniais svyravimais apie pagrindinio judesio ašį ir jai statmenas ašis bei linijiniai poslinkiai išilgai šių statmenų ašių. Dėl Abbe principo nesilaikymo, reikšmingiausiais yra karietėlės kampiniai svyravimai apie minėtąsias statmenas ašis. / One of the main components of a line position calibration error in linear scale calibrators are geometrical errors of the comparator, i.e. the errors associated with the carriage’s movement deviations – its slight angular fluctuations about the main movement axis and the axes perpendicular thereto, and the linear displacements along those perpendicular axes. The most important are the carriage’s angular fluctuations about the abovementioned perpendicular axes due to nonobservance of Abbe principle.

The thesis is about deformation measurement of the nozzle ring in variable nozzle turbine mechanism under temperature load. In the first part, there is a brief description of the turbocharger. In the second part, methods of deformation measurement are mentioned there. The main part of the thesis includes component testing of selected measuring methods and their application for measuring deformation of the nozzle ring on the turbocharger. Test is done on a gas stand which simulates the thermal load conditions of the turbocharger, same which is exposed to on the engine.

Der weltraumgestützte Gravitationswellendetektor LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) besteht aus drei identischen Satelliten an Bord derer sich jeweils zwei frei schwebende Testmassen befinden. Die Lage der einzelnen Testmassen in Bezug auf die zugehörige optische Bank muss mit einer Genauigkeit besser 1 pm/sqrt(Hz) in der Abstands- und besser 10 nrad/sqrt(Hz) in der Winkelmessung erfolgen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird ein kompaktes optisches Auslesesystem präsentiert, welches als Prototyp für diese Abstands- und Winkelmetrologie dient. Das dafür entwickelte polarisierende Heterodyn-Interferometer mit räumlich getrennten Frequenzen basiert auf einem hoch-symmetrischen Design, bei dem zur optimalen Gleichtakt-Unterdrückung Mess- und Referenzarm die gleiche Polarisation und Frequenz sowie annähernd gleiche optische Pfade haben. Für die Winkelmessung wird die Methode der differentiellen Wellenfrontmessung eingesetzt. In einem ersten Prototyp-Aufbau wird ein Rauschniveau von weniger als 100 pm/sqrt(Hz) in der Translations- und von weniger als 100 nrad/sqrt(Hz) in der Winkelmessung (beides für Frequenzen oberhalb 0.1 Hz) demonstriert. In einem zweiten Prototyp-Aufbau werden zusätzlich eine Intensitätsstabilisierung und ein Phasenlock der beiden Frequenzen implementiert. Die analoge Phasenmessung ist durch eine digitale, FPGA basierte, ersetzt. Mit diesem Aufbau wird ein Rauschen kleiner 5 pm/sqrt(Hz) in der Translationsmessung und kleiner 10 nrad/sqrt(Hz) in der Winkelmessung, beides für Frequenzen größer 0.01 Hz, erreicht. Eine Rausch-Analyse wurde durchgeführt und die Nichtlinearitäten des Interferometers bestimmt. Das Interferometer wurde im Hinblick auf die LISA Mission entwickelt, findet seine Anwendung aber auch bei der Charakterisierung der dimensionalen Stabilität von ultra-stabilen Materialien sowie in der optischen Profilometrie. Die Adaptierung des Interferometers dazu sowie erste Resultate zu beiden Anwendungen werden in dieser Arbeit präsentiert. / The space-based gravitational wave detector LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) consists of three identical satellites. Each satellite accommodates two free-flying proof masses whose distance and tilt with respect to its corresponding optical bench must be measured with at least 1 pm/sqrt(Hz) sensitivity in translation and at least 10 nrad/sqrt(Hz) sensitivity in tilt measurement. In this thesis, a compact optical readout system is presented, which serves as a prototype for the LISA proof mass attitude metrology. We developed a polarizing heterodyne interferometer with spatially separated frequencies. For optimum common mode rejection, it is based on a highly symmetric design, where measurement and reference beam have the same frequency and polarization, and similar optical pathlengths. The method of differential wavefront sensing (DWS) is utilized for the tilt measurement. In a first prototype setup noise levels below 100 pm/sqrt(Hz) in translation and below 100 nrad/sqrt(Hz) in tilt measurement (both for frequencies above 0.1 Hz) are achieved. A second prototype was developed with additional intensity stabilization and phaselock of the two heterodyne frequencies. The analog phase measurement is replaced by a digital one, based on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). With this setup, noise levels below 5 pm/sqrt(Hz) in translation measurement and below 10 nrad/sqrt(Hz) in tilt measurement, both for frequencies above 0.01Hz, are demonstrated. A noise analysis was carried out and the nonlinearities of the interferometer were measured. The interferometer was developed for the LISA mission, but it also finds its application in characterizing the dimensional stability of ultra-stable materials such as carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) and in optical profilometry. The adaptation of the interferometer and first results in both applications are presented in this work.

The thesis deals with a development and application of laser interferometer system for the online error calibration of CNC machine tool. The term „online“ means, that laser interferometer is permanently built in the machine tool. Therefore particular error measurements can be done in very short time period.

This diploma thesis deals with the influence of electronic compensation on accuracy of the measurement using the touch probe. The theoretical part concerns touch probes, specifically their classification, principles of working and applications. This part also includes devices used later in the experiment, particularly double ballbar, laser interferometer and LaserTRACER. The Practical part describes an experiment, demonstrating the correlation between the accuracy improvement of the touch probe and the electronic compensation’s level. All measurements were executed in accordance with the norm VDA 5 and were evaluated by the Matlab software. The graphs of reliance tolerance of capability of measurement on the length of the benchmark. At the end of this diploma thesis there are partial conclusions deduced. The deduction is based on generated graphs. The partial conclusions synoptically compare the influence of individual machine´s configurations on the accuracy of the touch probe.

This diploma thesis describes the procedures of individual electronic compensations for CNC machines used to increase the accuracy of machines. This part is followed by the determining tolerance of the measuring and the influence of individual electronic compensations based on measured data using touch probe and calibrated standards according to VDA 5 norm.

This thesis solves the impact of conventional compensation to the volumetric accuracy of the CNC machine. It is therefore a practical research work, where are in the theoretical introduction mentioned requirements for machine tools, the types of errors that can occur on three-axis kinematics, compensation for the control system Siemens Sinumerik 840D sl and devices by means of which are these compensation under the work formed and subsequently verified. In this work can be seen the measured values and graphs from each measurements, a detailed analysis of the results and drawing conclusions from these results.