The articulated arm coordinate measuring machine （AACMM） is one of the portable non-orthogonal coordinate measuring instruments with a series structure and an angle error that has an amplifying effect on the measurement accuracy， making it difficult to improve the measurement accuracy. To solve the above problems， the AACMM kinematic modeling method with a tilt motion error compensation for the rotation axis was proposed based on the DH model. The method for separating the tilt motion error for the rotating axis was studied， and the corresponding test system was built. The calibration model for the structural parameter errors was established based on the spatial distance， and the corresponding experiments were performed. The experimental results show that the measured standard deviation for the AACMM whose kinematic model included the function of compensating the tilt motion error for the rotating axis is reduced from 0.055 mm to 0.037 mm， compared to that for the DH model. The model can effectively promote the accuracy of AACMM.