To reduce the contouring errors in computer-numerical-control (CNC) contour-following tasks, the cross-coupling controller (CCC) is widely researched and used. However, most existing CCCs are well-designed for two-axis contouring and can hardly be generalized to compensate three-axis curved contour following errors. This paper proposes an equivalent-plane CCC scheme so that most of the two-axis CCCs or flexibly designed algorithms can be utilized for equal control of the three-axis contouring errors. An initial-value regeneration-based Newton method is first proposed to compute the foot point from the actual motion position to the desired contour with a high accuracy, so as to establish the equivalent plane where the estimated three-dimensional contouring-error vector is included. After that, the signed contouring error is computed in the equivalent plane, thus a typical two-axis proportional-integral-differential (PID)-based CCC is utilized for its control. Finally, the two-axis control commands generated by the typical CCC are coupled to three-axis control commands according to the geometry of the established equivalent plane. Experimental tests are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the presented method. The testing results illustrate that the proposed equivalent-plane CCC performs much better than conventional method in both error estimation and error control.
