Positioning is defined as the exact location of a given object relative to an assumed reference point, which is usually the origin of a given Cartesian coordinate system. Positioning is one of the basic operations in many areas of research and scientific disciplines, including basically industry, commerce, and everyday life. The most famous and widely used positioning tool is the Global Positioning System (GPS) [
1]. GPS and the Internet, especially the Internet and various electronic-optical-sensoric systems, are currently the most important infrastructures of the global information society. These systems are widely used in navigation, transportation, environmental protection, surveying, public safety, military, etc. Positioning, or more precisely, precise positioning, is also widely used in many areas of mechanical engineering, especially in the era of the Industry 4.0 industrial revolution [
2]. In this case, the most tangible examples of precision positioning tasks are: locating the probe of a measuring instrument relative to the measurement target, determining the position of the cutter relative to the workpiece, montage a screw in the target hole using a robot arm, etc. All examples of engineering tasks related to precise positioning described above are supported by advanced systems and technologies, including measurement systems [
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12].
The measurement basis for precise positioning is the latest sensor technologies for single-axis, linear, or rotational measurements. The vast majority of practical applications require positioning in a plane or in a 3D space, and one of the most frequently used is angular positioning. These are realized by multi-axis coordinate measurement methods such as triangulation and multilateration, as well as measurements in Cartesian and polar systems. The work [
13] presents the results of measuring the deviation of the shaft diameter after the turning process, using the LTS laser triangulation sensor. A programme was developed and verified whose task is to communicate the PLC controller in the measurement system with the software for recording data obtained from the LTS laser triangulation sensor. In this case, inspection of the manufactured product is one of the most important operations in the technological production process [
14]. Based on the test results, the authors concluded that this type of sensor is suitable for measuring the deviation parameter of the diameter of the machined surface. Another important issue is to reduce the positioning error of the rotary table of a multi-axis machine tool. The angular positioning error in this case causes poor quality milling of the workpiece surface. Therefore, in work [
15] the authors developed a system to improve this issue, using Laser R-Test to calibrate angular positioning and compensate for positioning errors of the numerically controlled axes of the machine tool. Uncertainty analysis and calibration were implemented to predict the system. As evaluated by the authors of this work, the proposed measurement method can also solve the problems of coaxiality between the measuring devices and the rotary table. The system developed in this work achieves an angular error of 0.00121° for real workpieces, which is smaller than the error achieved by the commercial system, which is approximately 0.0022°. In turn, in work [
16] the angular positioning error of the rotary axis caused by the tilt movement error and the spindle radial movement error was analysed and experimentally verified. In addition, the offset value introduced to the encoder was analysed and experimentally verified. Angular positioning is also an important parameter that determines the proper operation of force systems. Hence, in work [
17], a non-contact optical sensing method was developed to simultaneously detect the linear and angular position of the rotor of a prototype 2DOF-SRM reluctance motor. In work [
18], the authors proposed a method for calibrating the angular positioning deviation of a precision rotary table of a coordinate measuring machine based on a measurement system with a laser marker. The Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm and the singular value distribution transformation were used to calculate the coordinates of the laser marker station. The fixed-interval angular deviation was calibrated using a geometric relationship model between the coordinates of the laser marker station and the rotation angle of the turntable. In work [
19] presents an angular position measurement system based on a sensor consisting of a single transmitter and two receiving coils. The mutual inductance between the transmitter coils was spatially modulated using conductive lenses. The measurement results form the basis for estimating the absolute angle. The advantage of this solution is resistance to many harmful factors, such as moisture, poor lighting, or oil contamination. Therefore, this system could be successfully used for angular positioning, e.g., indexable cutter blades. Angular positioning is also important from a military point of view. In work [
20], a system was developed based on an algorithm to calculate the angular position of the rocket in real time when it is ready to launch from the rocket launcher. For this purpose, video streams recorded from three different cameras were used. Finally, the algorithm was implemented on a programmable SoPC chip using FPGA programmable array gates. In addition to systems based on sensors or optics, flexible mechanical systems are also used for precise angular positioning [
21]. These are usually flexible micro-angular position measurement systems.
The analysis of the current state of knowledge clearly shows that there are no research works in which an attempt was made to develop and analyse a method for precise angular positioning of replaceable cutting blades of indexable cutters. Therefore, such an attempt was made in this work. This is particularly important in terms of extending tool life through rational and full use of the entire length of the cutting edge, especialy round cutting inserts of the torus milling cutters. All considerations will be made for a torus cutter, for which the problem of precise angular positioning is most important due to the round cutting insert. To develop such a method, one must first determine its geometric and kinematic foundations and technological assumptions. The process of multi-axis surface milling of complex parts made of a Ni-based superalloy was adopted as the geometric and kinematic basis. In this process, taking into account the processed material, the tool wear indicator VB [
22,
23] and the heat affected zone [
24,
25] become important. Therefore, this indicator was adopted as the main criterion for the method proposed in this work.