Precision Engineering 61 (2020) 160–169

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Precision Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/precision

3D measurement of gears based on a line structured light sensor

Xiaozhong Guo a , Zhaoyao Shi a ,∗, Bo Yu a , Baoya Zhao a,b , Ke Li a , Yanqiang Sun a
a
Beijing Engineering Research Center of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
b
School of Mechatronics Engineering, North China Institute of Aerospace Engineering, Langfang 065000, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

MSC: Gears are core components of transmission systems. The current trend of gear measurements is the rapid and
00-01 full digitization. To rapidly obtain information on the three-dimensional (3D) shape of the gear tooth flank,
99-00 a 3D point cloud measurement system based on a line structure light sensor and high precision air floating
Keywords: rotary table is proposed. The system can acquire more than 1.5 million 3D data points on one side of the gear
Gear measurement tooth flank within less than 5 s. In this study, the measured 3D point cloud data is used to calculate the profile
3D point cloud error, pitch error, then compared to those obtained from traditional contact measurements. In addition, tooth
Line structured light sensor
flank error was evaluated. The results show that the 3D point cloud measurement system can perform fast and
Involute error
accurately in 3D measurements of gears and it is a novel system for gear measurement and error calculation.

1. Introduction devices. However, there is less confidence in the measurement made

Gears are core components of transmission systems, therefore, the
accuracy of a transmission system is determined by the quality of its
gears [1]. Gear measurement principles have evolved from initial com-
parative measurements to various measurement mechanisms. Further-
more, these methods have progressed from mechanical measurement
techniques to electronic methods for overall error measurement and
CNC coordinate measurement optical holography.
Traditional point and line-based gear measurement and evaluation
methods cannot fully represent the entire design, manufacture, and
usage information of gears. With the development of new measurement
technologies and transmission systems, full digitization has become an
important trend in gear measurement. Future gear measurement and
evaluation methods must also consider all flank topography data.
Three-dimensional (3D) measurement systems for gears transform
the shape of the gear flank into high-density discrete geometric coordi-
nate data. In this study, the aim was to express the continuous, gradual
involute tooth flank geometry as high-density 3D point cloud data. The
complete 3D point cloud represents the full shape information of the
tooth flank, and the gear manufacturing accuracy can be fully evaluated
based on this data [2].
At present, 3D point cloud data acquisition methods can be di-
vided into contact and non-contact approaches. Contact measurement
methods for gear tooth flanks typically use a coordinate measuring
machine or a gear measuring center. While contact methods offer
high precision, the measurement process is slow. On the other hand,
non-contact measurements can be realized using optical measuring
by non-contact instruments due to the complexity of error sources.
Nonetheless, owing to the convenience and fast measurement speeds,
non-contact methods are increasingly being used.
Laser triangulation is a commonly used 3D point cloud non-contact
measurement method that can quickly obtain the flank topography of
parts. An emitting lens first creates a collimated beam of laser light that
is transmitted onto the flank of the object to be measured. Then, the
scattered light is reflected off the flank of the object and is focused by
a receiving lens onto a photosensitive element for ranging. The line
structured light sensor is based on the principle of laser trigonome-
try, which integrates both laser emitting and receiving devices. The
emitted laser beam intersects the flank of the object to be measured
in a curve, thereby obtaining the flank profile of the complex curved
flank. Line structured light is widely used in displacement measurement
systems owing to its high speed, high precision, and anti-interference
characteristics.
Peters et al. first attempted to measure gears with line structured
light sensor in 2000 [3]. Leopold et al. and Chen et al. both built
experimental devices based on laser triangulation theory [4,5]. Atul
Kumar et al. used a rotary table and laser scanner to obtain 3D point
cloud data of gears and used the K-means algorithm to preprocess
the data, but did not evaluate gear accuracy [6]. Nikon developed a
high-speed, high-precision flank topography measuring instrument, the
HN-C3030, which can be adapted to different gears with diameters
of up to 300 mm. Hexagon developed a gear point cloud measuring
instrument based on a line structured light sensor. The instrument uses

∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: shizhaoyao@bjut.edu.cn (Z. Shi).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.precisioneng.2019.10.013
Received 31 July 2019; Received in revised form 11 October 2019; Accepted 17 October 2019
Available online 19 October 2019
0141-6359/© 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
X. Guo et al. Precision Engineering 61 (2020) 160–169

Table 1
Rotary table geometry and precision parameters.
Parameter Value
Diameter 500 mm
Variable Speed 0.1 ∼ 5 rpm
Torque 20 Nm continuous/93 Nm peak
Flatness of Platen Surface 0.005 mm
Runout of Platen Surface 0.005 mm
Parallelism of Tabletop to Base 0.010 mm
Angular System Resolution 0.2 arc second 0.0001◦
Angular Repeatability ±0.2 arc second
Angular indexing error ±3 arc seconds
Radial — Max Deviation ±0.0001 mm 0.0002 mm TIR
Axial — Max Deviation ±0.0001 mm 0.0002 mm TIR
Coning of Axis ±0.5 arc second

Table 2
Line structured light sensor parameters.
Parameter Value
Mounting conditions Specular reflection
Fig. 1. 3D point cloud measurement device. Reference distance 60 mm
Measurement range (Z-axis (height)) ±8 mm
Measurement range (X-axis (width))-near side 8 mm
Measurement range (X-axis (width))-Reference distance 15 mm
four structured light sensors to measure the tooth flank and a line Measurement range (X-axis (width))-far side 15 mm
structured light sensor can be placed above the gear to measure the Light source Type Blue semiconductor laser
Light source Wavelength 405 nm (visible beam)
inner circle, however, 3D measurement of gears using this instrument is Repeatability Z-axis (height) 0.4 μm
still in the experimental stages. Further to this, Heartig et al. proposed Repeatability X-axis (width) 5 μm
a 3D point cloud assessment method and principle for gears, but did Profile data interval 20 μm
not present a suitable measuring instrument [7]. To rapidly obtain the Sampling cycle (trigger interval) Top speed: 16 μs
3D shape data of a gear tooth flank and to evaluate gear machining
precision, a line structured light sensor and high-precision air-floating
rotary table were used to build a 3D measurement device, which
can be used to quickly and accurately obtain the 3D point data and
dimensional error of gear teeth.

2. Measurement system

2.1. Structure of measurement system

A Rotary Precision Instruments (RPI) AP500 high-precision air-

floating rotary table was used to establish the rotating shaft axis of the
measurement system. As shown in Fig. 1, the rotary table adopts a full
air-floating bearing structure, which can ensure high rotation precision.
The measured gear is fixed by the three-jaw chunk on the rotary table.
The line structured light sensor is also fixed in a suitable position such
that the tip and root of the gear tooth are within the measurement
range.
The rotary table integrates a high-precision circular grating for feed-
back control and the subdivision of the grating results in an output of Fig. 2. Two-dimensional coordinate of line structured light sensor.
2.6 million pulse standard TTL(Transistor–Transistor Logic) signals per
revolution, the geometry and performance of this rotary table are listed
in Table 1. The line structured light sensor controller triggers sampling
as two-dimensional coordinate, as shown in Fig. 2. Thus, coordinate
according to the TTL signal from circular grating, the parameters of
establishing spatial relationship between the line structured light sensor
the sensor are listed in Table 2, equal-angle sampling is therefore and the precision air-floating rotary table was performed by these two
guaranteed for gear measurements in the circumferential direction. coordinates.
The External sampling mode can incontrovertibly correspond to the To achieve registration of the line structured light sensor in the
position of the measuring point and the tooth flank point to ensures space coordinate system, a registration method is proposed for spatial
the correctness of the original data. free position for the sensor in this study. The method adopts a high-
precision cylinder fixed to the center of the rotary table as the standard
2.2. Registration of measurement system component, with a diameter equivalent to the reference diameter of the
gear. First, the line structured light sensor is obliquely aligned with the
Before measuring the flank geometry of the gear, the relative po- cylinder at an arbitrary angle, then the position of the line structured
sition and orientation between the line structured light sensor and light sensor is fine-tuned to ensure the cylindrical surface is within the
the gear must be determined, in other words, the coordinate relation- measurement range of the sensor. The spatial relationship between the
ship of the measurement system should be established. The precision cylinder and the sensor is shown in Fig. 3.
air-floating rotary table is the basic rotary axis system of the sys- The line laser of the sensor forms a elliptical arc on the surface of the
tem and the line structured light sensor outputs the distance data cylinder. The arc 𝑃1 , 𝑃2 is part of the ellipse formed by the intersection

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[ ]
Where D = 𝑥1 , 𝑥2 , 𝑥3 , … , 𝑥𝑁 is the distance vector from each point
to the center of the ellipse.
The short axis of the ellipse is the cylindrical radius 𝑅, then ac-
cording
√ to the ellipse formula, the short axis of the ellipse is B =
−2𝑓
√
2 ( )2 , which gives get
𝑎+𝑐+ 𝑏2 + 𝑎−𝑐
𝑓

8
⎡ 1 0 1 0 0 ⎤
𝐵2
⎢ 0 −1 0 0 0 0 ⎥⎥
⎢ 8
⎢ 1 0 1 0 0 ⎥
𝒂𝑇 𝐶𝒂 = 𝒂𝑇 ⎢ 𝐵2 ⎥ 𝒂 = 1 (3)
⎢ 0 0 0 0 0 0 ⎥
⎢ 0 0 0 0 0 0 ⎥
⎢ 8 8 64 ⎥
⎣ 82
0 𝐵2
0 0 𝐵4 ⎦
According to the above mathematical relations, the following equa-
tion set can be obtained,
{
𝑆𝑎 = 𝜆𝐶𝑎
, 𝑆 = 𝐷𝑇 𝐷 (4)
𝑎𝑇 𝐶𝑎 = 1
Where 𝜆 is the eigenvalue of matrix 𝑆 relative to matrix 𝐶. In the
matrix calculation results, the eigenvector corresponding to the non-
negative eigenvalue is the real solution(in real number field) of the
equation.
To solve this generalized eigenvalue problem, the parameters of the
general ellipse expression 𝒂𝟎 and the central coordinates of the elliptic
Fig. 3. Positional relationship between the line structured light sensor and cylindrical geometric parameters (𝑋𝑐 , 𝑌𝑐 ), the long axis 𝐴, the short axis 𝐵, and
standard component.
the inclination angle 𝜃 are obtained, and the geometrical parameter of
[ ]
ellipse is 𝒈𝟎 = 𝑋𝑐0 𝑌𝑐0 𝑎0 𝑏0 𝜃0 .
Taking 𝒈𝟎 as the initial value of geometric distance least square
of the output laser beam with the sensor light plane and the cylinder. method, accurate elliptic parameters are obtained after several itera-
The output of the line structured light sensor is the distance from the tions of jacobian matrix, the jacobian matrix is
sensor zero plane to the ellipse surface. The ellipse has the following
⎡ 𝐽𝑋 ′ ,𝑋 𝐽𝑋 ′ ,𝑌𝑐 𝐽𝑋 ′ ,𝑎 𝐽𝑋 ′ ,𝜃 ⎤ ⎛𝛥𝑋 ⎞ ⎛𝑋 ′′ ⎞
𝐽𝑋 ′ ,𝑏
characteristics: ⎢ 1 𝑐 1 1 1 ⎥ 1 𝑐 1
⎢ 𝐽𝑌1′ ,𝑋𝑐 𝐽 𝐽
𝑌1′ ,𝑌𝑐 𝐽
𝑌1′ ,𝑎 𝐽𝑌 ′ ,𝜃 ⎥ ⎜ 𝛥𝑌𝑐 ⎟ ⎜ 𝑌1′′ ⎟
𝑌1′ ,𝑏
⎢ ⋮
1 ⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ⎟
1. The plane in which the ellipse is located is the plane of the line
⎢ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⎥⎥ ⎜ 𝛥𝑎 ⎟ = ⎜ ⋮ ⎟ (5)
structured light sensor laser plane. ⎢𝐽𝑋𝑚′ ,𝑋𝑐 𝐽𝑋𝑚′ ,𝑌𝑐 𝐽𝑋𝑚′ ,𝑎 𝐽𝑋𝑚′ ,𝑏 𝐽𝑋𝑚′ ,𝜃 ⎥ ⎜ 𝛥𝑏 ⎟ ⎜𝑋𝑚 ⎟
⎢𝐽 ′ ⎜ ⎟ ⎜ ′′ ⎟
2. The center of the ellipse is on the axis line of the cylinder
⎣ 𝑌𝑚 ,𝑋𝑐 𝐽𝑌𝑚′ ,𝑌𝑐 𝐽𝑌𝑚′ ,𝑎 𝐽𝑌𝑚′ ,𝑏 𝐽𝑌𝑚′ ,𝜃 ⎥⎦ ⎝ 𝛥𝜃 ⎠ ⎝ 𝑌𝑚 ⎠
component. [ ]
3. The elliptical short axis is equal to the radius of the cylinder then get the final ellipse parameters 𝒈𝐟 = 𝑋𝑐 𝑌𝑐 𝑎 𝑏 𝜃 , 𝒈𝐟 is
component. the most accurate fitting result.
The ellipse-fitting algorithm used in the coordinate registration of
First, the relationship between the ellipse short-axis and ellipse pa- the measuring device differs to ordinary ellipse fitting, in fact, geo-
rameters (𝑎, 𝑏, 𝑐) are used as dual-constraints for the algebraic distance metric fitting with a small sample range of measurements. However,
least squares method is used to solve for the ellipse parameters [8]. the spatial distribution of the measured points are concentrated within
The result is then used as the initial value and the geometric distance a small region, which can easily distort the fitted result. Thus, ellipse
least squares method is used to iteratively solve for the exact elliptic fitting based on incomplete arc segments presents a difficult problem
geometry parameters [9]. in the field of precision measurement, engineering mapping, and model
According to the positional relationship between the ellipse and line reconstruction.
structured light sensor, the measurement data can be converted into The fitting effect has an important relationship with the measure-
coordinates in the elliptical plane 𝑂′ 𝑋 ′ 𝑌 ′ . The inclination ratio of the ment data error, spatial distribution, and constraints. Results of the
𝑂′ 𝑋 ′ 𝑌 ′ plane with respect to the rotary table end face 𝑂𝑋𝑌 is the ratio general least squares method are often unsatisfactory or may even
of the major and minor axes of the ellipse. A point in the elliptical seriously deviate from theoretical values. In this paper, the fitting data
coordinate system 𝑂′ 𝑋 ′ 𝑌 ′ can be converted into cylindrical coordinates is derived from the high-precision line structured light sensor but the
using the inclination angle; therefore, it is possible to convert the measurement range is small. Therefore, the constrained least squares
line structured light sensor measurement data into three-dimensional method can improve the accuracy of the ellipse fitting to meet the
coordinate data along the basic rotary axis. measurement accuracy requirements.
According to the definition of an ellipse, an ellipse expression is
established, 3. Tooth flank error parameters

𝐹 (𝐚, 𝐱) = 𝐚 ⋅ 𝐱 = 𝑎𝑥2 + 𝑏𝑥𝑦 + 𝑐𝑦2 + 𝑑𝑥 + 𝑒𝑦 + 𝑓 = 0 (1)

The involute helical gear tooth flank is an involute spiral flank,
[ ]
where 𝐚 = 𝑎 𝑏 𝑐 𝑑 𝑒 𝑓 and which is a space curved flank formed by a straight line that is tangent
[ ]𝑇 to the base cylinder and has a fixed angle with the axis along the base
𝐱 = 𝑥2 𝑥𝑦 𝑦2 𝑥 𝑦 1 .
The ellipse is fitted by least square method based with algebraic cylinder. According to the spatial geometry knowledge, two variables
distance, define can determine a spatial flank, this paper also uses two variables to
establish the involute flank equation as shown in Fig. 4. One of the
∑
𝑁
( )2 variables is the axial position 𝑧 and the other is the angle 𝜃. The 𝜃 angle
𝐷𝐴 (𝒂) = 𝐹 𝑥𝑖 = 0 (2)
is the sum of the involute expansion angle and the pressure angle. The
𝑖=1

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Fig. 5. Evaluation of pitch error.

tooth reference line can be expressed as

𝑥 − 𝑥0 𝑦 − 𝑦0 𝑧 − 𝑧0
= = (8)
𝐴 𝐵 𝐶
After linear transformation, we obtain
{ ( )
𝑥 = 𝐶𝐴 𝑧 − 𝑧0 + 𝑥0
( ) (9)
𝑦 = 𝐶𝐵 𝑧 − 𝑧0 + 𝑦0

And
{
𝑥 = 𝑎𝑧 + 𝑏
(10)
𝑦 = 𝑐𝑧 + 𝑑
where
Fig. 4. Model of the involute helicoid. 𝐴 𝐴 𝐵 𝐵
a= , 𝑏 = 𝑥0 − 𝑧0 , 𝑐 = , 𝑑 = 𝑦0 − 𝑧0 (11)
𝐶 𝐶 𝐶 𝐶
The tooth reference line parameters of each tooth flank are obtained
𝜃 angle can determine the shape of the tooth on the end section of an using the least squares fitting algorithm, and then the actual tooth
axial position, and 𝑧 can determine the axial position corresponding to reference line is obtained. As shown in Fig. 5, (for spur gear), the red
the tooth profile of the end section. straight line is the tooth reference line of the corresponding tooth [11].
In Fig. 4, M is a point on the involute flank, the position of this A point in the middle of the tooth width 𝑧𝑚𝑖𝑑 = 12 𝑏 is taken as the
specified point is: pitch deviation calculation point on the actual fitted tooth reference
{ }
⃖⃖⃖⃖⃖⃗ + 𝐸𝐹
𝑟⃗ = 𝑂𝐸 ⃖⃖⃖⃖⃖⃗ + 𝐹
⃖⃖⃖⃖⃖⃖⃖
𝑀⃗ line, P = 𝑝1 , 𝑝2 , … , 𝑝𝑁 , where 𝑁 is the number of teeth. Individual
(6) single pitch deviations can be calculated by the length of the arc
⃗
= 𝑥⃗𝑖 + 𝑦𝑗⃗ + 𝑧𝑘 difference between the theoretical pitch of two adjacent points. The
where: maximum value among deviations is 𝑓𝑝𝑡 .
𝑥 = 𝑂𝐸 cos(𝜏 + 𝜇 + 𝜃) + 𝐹 𝑀 sin(𝜏 + 𝜇 + 𝜃) Selecting one deviation as the starting point and successively cal-
culating the difference between each point and the starting point, the
= 𝑟𝑏 cos(𝜏 + 𝜇 + 𝜃) + 𝜃𝑟𝑏 sin(𝜏 + 𝜇 + 𝜃)
arc length and theoretical gear pitch can then be calculated to obtain
𝑦 = 𝑂𝐸 sin(𝜏 + 𝜇 + 𝜃) − 𝐹 𝑀 cos(𝜏 + 𝜇 + 𝜃) (7) the cumulative deviation of the gear pitch. The difference between its
= 𝑟𝑏 sin(𝜏 + 𝜇 + 𝜃) − 𝜃𝑟𝑏 cos(𝜏 + 𝜇 + 𝜃) maximum and minimum values is the 𝐹𝑝 .
𝑧 = 𝐸𝐹 = 𝑧
3.2. Profile deviation
The 𝑟𝑏 is the radius of base cylinder(mm), 𝜏 is the position angle
about the cylindrical of this specified involute flank(rad). All of the
The deviation of tooth profile could be caused by manufacturing
gear errors calculation and result analysis are based this geometric
error, installation error of cutter or short cycle error of machine tool
modeling.
transmission chain. The profile deviation is the amount by which a
measured profile deviates from the design profile [10]. This deviation is
3.1. Pitch deviation
commonly determined from one measured profile line along the tooth,
as shown in Fig. 6. However, in the presence of 3D points along a
Pitch deviation is one of the most important indicators of gear
broader surface area, we can expand evaluation of profile deviation
performance. Smaller pitch deviation is beneficial as it can reduce
to consider multiple profile lines along the tooth axial direction. The
vibrations and noise and improve transmission accuracy. The evalua-
additional dimension enables us to express profile deviations in terms
tion index mainly consists of the single pitch deviation (𝑓𝑝𝑡 ) and total
of a box as shown in Fig. 7. The box contains all profile deviation lines
cumulative pitch deviation 𝐹𝑝 [10].
and points among profile evaluation scope, therefore, the total profile
The pitch error of the cylinder gear can be calculated using the gear
tolerance would be calculated by the maximum and minimum value of
tooth reference line (the line that intersects the tooth flank and face
all profile deviation values.
reference cylinder). First, points near the tooth reference line on each
tooth flank are extracted by letting 𝑟 represent the theoretical reference
circle radius and 𝑟′ denote the distance from the measurement point to 3.3. Tooth flank form error
the gear center axis, and taking 𝑟′ − 𝑟 ≤ 𝜖 points as the tooth reference
line points, as is shown in Fig. 5. Selecting a tooth flank of the measured gear as the evaluation
The theoretical tooth reference line can be considered as a straight object, the theoretical involute tooth flank equation corresponding to
line perpendicular to the plane of the gear end face, and the actual the selected tooth can be obtained as shown in Fig. 8. From the involute

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Fig. 6. Profile deviations with normal involute.

Fig. 9. Point-by-point distance.

Fig. 10. Distribution of 3D point errors.

Fig. 7. Profile deviations with unmodified involute.

According to the gear manufacturing process and 3D measurement

principles, results of the 3D point cloud measurement obey the distri-
bution shown in Fig. 10, which follows a uniform distribution in the
interval [𝜇 − 𝑎, 𝜇 + 𝑎] and a normal-like distribution in the interval
(−∞, 𝜇 − 𝑎) and (𝜇 − 𝑎, +∞), the 𝜇 is the mean value and 𝑎 is the width
of the uniform distribution [12].
The symbol 𝜇 is the degree to which the whole point cloud data
deviates from the theoretical tooth flank, mainly reflected as tooth
distance error and tooth direction error. In addition, 𝑎 represents the
normal 3D point scatter range on the tooth flank and 𝜎 is the scattered
form of the distance of the point cloud data with large error values with
respect to the theoretical tooth flank. Both a and 𝜎 are mainly reflected
in the tooth shape error. The Gaussian distribution at both ends of the
curve contain gross errors in gear processing and measurement process,
which may also be caused by unintentional modifications to the tooth
flank.
Gross errors in the measurement process as well as environmental
factors can greatly influence 3D gear measurements. For instance,
cutting chips and other defects attached to the flank lead to large
measurement errors. Thus, it is useful to set the confidence interval of
Fig. 8. Principle of generating involute. the error data distribution as [𝜇 − 𝑢 𝛼 √𝜎 , 𝜇 + 𝑢 𝛼 √𝜎 ], letting 𝛼 = 0.05,
2 𝑛 2 𝑛
that is the calculation interval is 2.5% ∼ 97.5%, to account for the effects
mentioned above and to obtain a more precise result that is, 95% of the
equation, 𝑖𝑛𝑣(𝛼𝐾 ) = tan(𝛼𝐾 ) − 𝛼𝐾 , the tooth flank equation of the spur data points are within the scope of the data.
gear is
4. Experimental measurement
⎧ 𝑟
𝑟𝐾 = cos𝑏𝛼
⎪ 𝐾
4.1. Coordinate system registration
⎨ 𝜃𝐾 = tan 𝛼𝐾 − 𝛼𝐾 (12)
⎪ 𝑧=𝑧
⎩ A coordinate registration programme was developed based on co-
where 𝑟𝐾 is the radius vector of the point 𝐾 in involute; 𝑟𝑏 is radius ordinate registration theory and the method presented in Section 2.2.
The standard cylinder was set up and the rotary table was operated
of the involute base circle; 𝛼𝐾 is the pressure angle of the point 𝐾 in
and set to stop rotating every 60◦ . After measuring the current sensor
involute; 𝛩𝐾 is the unfold angle of the point 𝐾 in involute (see Fig. 7).
data in the static state, average values of each point after multiple
The distances of each point from the theoretical tooth flank along a measurements are taken as the final results. The sequence of mean
normal is calculated, Fig. 9 shows a section case. points was then input into the registration system to obtain the spatial

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Fig. 11. User interface of gear 3D point cloud measurement and evaluation software.

Table 3
Gear parameters.
Parameter Value
Number of teeth 28
Modulus 3
Pressure angle 27.5◦
Tip height 2.527 mm
Root height 3.75 mm
Accuracy level 6

relationship between the current line structured light sensor and the
rotary table. Then the registration system automatically generated a
coordinate transformation matrix.
The experimental results show that the slant angle of laser plane
of the line structured light sensor to the end plane of measured gear
is within the range of 10◦ ∼ 85◦ , and the above ellipse fitting and
registration methods are highly accurate, and can be used to accurately
acquire 3D data on the flank of the object being tested.
Fig. 12. Original 3D raw point measurement data for gear.

4.2. 3D Point cloud measurement processing

A common gear assembled in vehicle gearbox was used as the

measuring object, and the gear parameters are listed in Table 3.
The Gear Linear Scanner software was developed on Windows
Presentation Foundation (WPF) based on the measurement system
and coordinate registration technology, and combined with the gear
3D point cloud measurement principle and measurement device. The
software interface is shown in Fig. 11.
After the measurement coordinate system was registered, the gear
was placed on the chuck and the line structured light sensor was used
to continuously collect contour data, triggered by the turret grating.
During the data collection process, the rotary table operated at a
constant speed. The sensor data was then converted into the cylindrical
coordinate system of the gear according spatial position relationship
defined during the registration step. The measured gear is rotated about
the z axis of the rotary table, and after the coordinate transformation Fig. 13. 3D point cloud measurement data for single-sided flank (left).
about the z axis, the final gear three dimensional point cloud data was
created. Fig. 12 presents the original point cloud measurement data and
Fig. 13 shows the extracted one sided flank measurement data. The involute tooth flank geometry is complex and the reflection of
After the laser beam is emitted by the line structured light sensor, the laser beam varies with the curvature of the root. The tooth flank
it is reflected off the flank of the object into the receiving area for and the tooth tip also vary greatly. Therefore, the line structured light
imaging. The sensor uses image processing technology to calculate the sensor of the measurement system was only able to obtain the left
distance between the reflective flank and the sensor. The process is or right flank data during the experiment, regardless of whether the
closely dependent on the reflection angle of the measured object and precision rotary table was rotating in the clockwise or counterclockwise
the amount of light entering the receiving area. direction.

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When the sensor laser beam leaned to the right and the rotary
table rotated clockwise, the spatial relationship between the laser beam
of the sensor and the measured gear tooth flank is divided into 5
stages [13]:

1. entering the left tooth flank.

2. all on the left tooth flank.
3. stretching both flanks of the tooth.
4. all into the right flank
5. part of the right flank

The spatial relationship and sensor data are shown in Fig. 14. The
top of the figure shows the relationship between the laser beam and
tooth flank, while the bottom side depicts the line structured light
sensor receiving area distance value and the sensor laser beam point
sensitivity.
From Fig. 14, it can be observed that the line structured light sensor
receives the light reflected off the left tooth flank of the gear more
fully and evenly compared to the right side, and all laser line range
could be effectively measured; Whereas, the curvature of the right tooth
flank relative to the laser beam causes the reflection angle of the laser
beam to be larger, and the sensor is unable to accurately measure the
reflected light. However, when the laser beam leaned to the left, then
the right flank measurements were effectively and the left flank could
not be accurately measured.

5. 3D point cloud tooth flank error calculation

At present, gear error calculation methods rely on specific points

and lines on the tooth flank to represent the gear flank topography.
There are currently no evaluation criteria or methods for 3D point
cloud data. In this study, the points and lines used in traditional gear
measurement methods were extracted from the point cloud data to
calculate the pitch error. Then the distance between each point of the
3D point cloud data and the theoretical tooth flank was calculated
and the error distribution was analyzed. Pitch error and profile error
measurements were compared to similar measurements performed on
a Klingelnberg P26 Precision Measuring Center as shown in Fig. 15
(Klingelnberg AG, Deutschland), the Klingelnberg P26 can meet the
main gear measurement standards of ISO and VDI [14].

5.1. Gear 3D point cloud data pre-processing

In general, 3D point cloud data preprocessing involves defining the

point cloud space coordinates, splicing the point cloud data, filter-
ing the point cloud, filling in holes in the point cloud, and finally,
reducing the data. The output of the line structured light sensor is
two-dimensional, comprised of the distance between each point of
the sensor laser beam and the reflection flank. The space coordinate
system of the point cloud was established using the coordinate reg- Fig. 14. Sensor laser beam and tooth flank position, (a) part entering the left tooth
flank, (b) all on the left tooth flank, (c) stretching both flanks of the tooth, (d) all into
istration method presented in Section 2.2. Based on this, the point the right flank, (e) part of the right flank.
cloud in the area of the tooth flank being evaluated was subjected to
two-dimensional Gaussian filtering and noise point culling.
According to the constructed measurement system, data on the
5.2. Calculation of pitch error
measured distortion of the line structured light sensor were also prepro-
cessed. Invalid data on the right flank side is shown in Fig. 11. Gears
are industrial components with complicated geometric features and the Following the 3D point cloud calculation method presented in Sec-
accuracy of gears is currently assessed by using a number of different tion 3.1, the calculated pitch error of the left flank of the measured gear
parameters. In addition to general preprocessing, data fragmentation is is shown in Fig. 17. All points near the graduated circle of the tooth
also required to split the point cloud data into a single tooth flank. surface are extracted, then we get all reference line via least square
According to [10], the tooth flank evaluation area is 95% of the fitting. The pitch deviation information is obtained by calculating the
tooth flank portion, and the point cloud data of the evaluation area circumferential distance between these lines. The single pitch deviation
must be extracted from the data after slicing. The point cloud evalu- 𝑓𝑝 of the measured gear is 8.19 μm and the total cumulative pitch
ation area is shown in Fig. 16. The green portion of the single tooth deviation 𝐹𝑝 is 21.92 μm. The pitch precision grade of this gear is 6 [10].
flank is the tooth flank evaluation area and the areas shown in gray As shown in Fig. 17, the individual single pitch deviation of the left
were not evaluated. tooth flank measured by the Klingelnberg P26 is 6.2 μm, and the total

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Fig. 15. P26 gear measurement instrument.
Fig. 16. Tooth flank evaluation area (green) after point cloud preprocessing.
cumulative pitch deviation is 19.1 μm. the differences between the two
instruments in the measurement of pitch deviation are from 2 to 3 μm.
5.3. Calculation of profile error
Following the 3D point cloud profile deviation box model discussed
in Section 3.2, 50 profile deviation lines were extracted along the tooth
direction, comparing more than 30,000 surface points. The distribution
of profile deviations is shown in Fig. 18, with 95% of the deviations
contained within the shaded region. 95% of the measured deviations
are contained within the lower and upper boundaries as denoted by
the solid red lines in Fig. 18. These boundaries are given by the values
Fig. 17. Pitch error result comparison (a) Pitch error result of 3D measurement system; (b) pitch error result of Klingelnberg P26 measurement.
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Precision Engineering 61 (2020) 160–169
Fig. 18. Point-by-point 3D representation of tooth flank error.
𝜎 𝜎
[𝜇 − 𝑢 𝛼 √ ,𝜇 + 𝑢𝛼 √ ](𝛼 = 0.05) for the gross error in measure process.
2 𝑛 2 𝑛
In Fig. 19, the measured flank surface points are shown as a scatter
plot. The two planes envelop all valid surface points and are located
at 𝑧𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 = −7.86 μm and 𝑧𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑟 = 8.01 μm. the 𝐹𝛼 (Profile deviation,
total) is 15.87 μm, i.e 15.8 μm. The 𝐹𝛼 result of Klingelnberg P26
is 14.9 μm,multiple comparisons verified that the gear measurement
system and error calculation method can accurately measure profile
error [15].
5.4. 3D comparison based on theoretical tooth flank
After calculating the involute tooth flank error point-by-point, de-
viations across the entire tooth flank evaluation area were obtained.
As shown in Fig. 20, error of the display gear near the tooth reference
line is small and the processing quality is good at both the root and
tip of the tooth. Deviation in the top direction gradually increases, and
the error distribution reflects poor processing quality at the top of the
tooth root of the gear error form [16].
Fig. 21 shows the statistical distribution of points on the tooth
flank evaluation area and deviations from the theoretical tooth flank.
Based on the analysis of the distribution map, the 3D error distribution
of the tooth flank is consistent with the distribution calculated using
the method proposed in Section 4.2. The distribution fully reflects
the shape of the pitch error and is consistent with the pitch error
distribution obtained in Section 5.2.
X. Guo et al.
Fig. 19. Point-by-point 3D representation of tooth flank error.
Fig. 20. Point-by-point 3D representation of tooth flank error.
Fig. 21. 3D error distribution on gear tooth flank.
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Precision Engineering 61 (2020) 160–169
6. Conclusions and future work
A 3D point cloud measurement system for gears was built using
a line structured light sensor and precision air-floating rotary table.
A gear measurement coordinate system was also established and 3D
point cloud data of a single tooth flank was measured. The pitch error
was calculated by extracting the tooth reference line from the 3D point
cloud of the tooth flank, and compared to contact measurement results.
The results indicate good agreement between the structured light sensor
measurements and reference measurements made on a Klingelnberg
P26 instrument.
The deviation was calculated point-by-point in the tooth flank eval-
uation area and the 3D error information of the full flank was obtained.
Furthermore, a statistical analysis of the error data was used to as-
sess the relationship between the 3D measurement system and the
traditional measurement method.
In future research, we will design a special measuring instrument
for the 3D point cloud measurement of gears using multiple sensors
to measure registration and data fusion, and to obtain the complete
3D data of the left and right tooth flank and gear end face. Further to
this, we plan to adapt the point cloud measurement and data processing
technology to bevel gears with helical teeth. Finally, we will perform
further research on the tooth flank evaluation method and standards
of the 3D point cloud, and explore gear vibration shock and noise
mechanisms under the 3D point cloud.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (Key Program) 51635001 and National Key R&D Program of
China 2018YFB2001401.
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