In contour machining, contour error is a major factor affecting machining quality. In order to improve the performance of contour following, many control techniques based on real-time contour error estimation have been developed. In this paper, a Double Circle contour error estimation method is proposed. First, based on the kinematic information of the reference point on the command trajectory, five interpolation points closest to the actual point are obtained. Then the approximate contour error is obtained by employing the Double Circle approximation method. Compared with the common contour error approximation methods, the proposed method can achieve high precision approximation. In addition, according to the proposed contour error approximation method, the cross-coupled control strategy is improved. Experiments prove the effectiveness of the proposed estimation method and control strategy.