Periodic nonlinearity that ranges from tens of nanometers to a few nanometers in heterodyne interferometer limits its use in high accuracy measurement. A novel method is studied to detect the nonlinearity errors based on the electrical subdivision and the analysis method of statistical signal in heterodyne Michelson interferometer. Under the movement of micropositioning platform with the uniform velocity, the method can detect the nonlinearity errors by using the regression analysis and Jackknife estimation. Based on the analysis of the simulations, the method can estimate the influence of nonlinearity errors and other noises for the dimensions measurement in heterodyne Michelson interferometer.