Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Canon Precision Inc.

Nec Corporation

Masahiko Igaki

Akio Atsuta

Kenichi Kataoka

Yoshifumi Nishimoto

Manabu Takayama

Masaru Nyui

Hajime Yamamoto

Eiichiro Shimizu

Yasushi Miura

Hiroyuki Seki

Chihiro Nagura

Makoto Ogura

Eiichi Yanagi

Yasuyuki Miyaoka

Yasumichi Arimitsu

Haruhiko Horiguchi

Yoshinori Kojima

Yasuo Kotaki

Shinji Yamamoto

Masanori Takenouchi

Kenji Kitabatake

Ichiro Okumura

Nobuyuki Hatasa

Atsushi Kimura

Koh Ishizuka

Hiraku Kozuka

Ikuo Watanabe

Ko Ishizuka

Koji Kitani

Tadashi Kosaka

Satoru Hamasaki

Tadashi Adachi

Shinichiro Takahama

Masahiro Rachi

Tomohiro Maekawa

Naruto Sugimoto

Katsuhiro Fujii

Tsutomu Nagao

Yasuji Yokoyama

A method of manufacturing a rotary scale to be fixed to a rotating shaft of a rotating member includes a first step of forming, on a scale substrate, a scale pattern and a mark indicating an outer shape of the rotating shaft positioned such that a center axis of the rotating shaft coincides with a center axis of the scale pattern, a second step of cutting a first area of the scale substrate including the mark and having a first width, and a third step of cutting a second area including the mark that remains after the cutting of the first area, having a length in a circumferential direction of the scale substrate shorter than that in the first area and having a second width narrower than the first width.

Method of manufacturing rotary scale, rotary scale, rotary encoder, driving apparatus, image pickup apparatus and robot apparatus

An encoder () includes a cylindrical body (), a sensor unit () configured to detect a displacement of the cylindrical body () in a circumferential direction of the cylindrical body (), and a scale () that is attached to the cylindrical body () using a holder () and a holder () and that has a signal detection effective region () used to detect the displacement by the sensor unit (), and a region () that has a stiffness smaller than a stiffness of the signal detection effective region () in the circumferential direction of the cylindrical body () is provided on an outside of the signal detection effective region () and on at least one side of the first holder () and the second holder ().

Encoder that detects displacement of an object, and lens apparatus and camera having the same

A velocity detection apparatus detects a position of a moving object at a first timing and a second timing to detect a velocity of the moving object based on a difference between the first timing and the second timing. The first timing is a timing at which an identifiable mark position of the moving object is detected by a first detector and the second timing is a timing at which the mark position is detected by a second detector. The velocity detection apparatus includes a light source and first and second detectors which detects the mark position based on light obtained by illuminating the moving object using the light source. A vertical projection position of the light source onto a plane which is parallel to a main surface of the first or second detector is located between vertical projection positions of the first and the second detector onto the plane.

Velocity detection apparatus having two detectors

A displacement detection apparatus includes a scaleon which marks are disposed, first and second position detection sensorsanddetecting positions of the marks, and a processorperforming a calculation processing of an output signal from each of the first and second position detection sensorsand. The first and second position detection sensorsandare disposed at a distance L from each other to be movable relative to the scale. The processorcalculates a correction value P' of a mark pitch P of the marksusing the distance L, a first time Trequired for K marks of the marksto pass a detection position, and a second time Trequired for a specific mark of the marks, which are measured at the same time of the first time T, to move the distance L.

Displacement detection apparatus and method of correcting error of scale used for displacement detection apparatus

Provided is a rotary encoder, including: a rotary scale, which has a predetermined pattern including continuous patterns and a rotational angle original point formed thereon with reference to a pattern center, has a polygonal outer shape, and has the rotational angle original point defined with reference to at least one side of sides of the polygonal outer shape; a hub, which includes projections for abutting the sides of the polygonal outer shape of the rotary scale and positioning the rotary scale; a rotating shaft, which is press-fitted into the hub and rotates coaxially with the pattern center of the rotary scale; and detecting units for irradiating the rotary scale with light and detecting the light reflected by the rotary scale.

Rotary encoder and method of assembling the same

An optical encoder includes a light source, a scaledisposed so as to face the light source, a light receiving elementconfigured to receive luminous flux from the light source through the scale, and a signal processing circuitconfigured to process an output signal of the light receiving element. A light emitting windowof the light source is constituted of a collection of a plurality of point light sources and has a shape which meets a predetermined expression.

Optical encoder for obtaining displacement information of object

An optical encoder equipped with an origin detection apparatus has a scale provided with an optical grating, a plurality of light receiving elements that is provided in association with the pitch of the optical grating and movable relative to the scale and a light source that illuminates the light receiving elements with light through the scale. An optically discontinuous portion is provided in the optical grating of the scale, a change of a light beam that occurs over a certain length of section at the time when a light beam corresponding to the discontinuous portion is incident on the light receiving elements, a change occurring in that section is detected, calculation is performed, and an origin position is detected from the result of the calculation.

Origin detection method for optical encoder

A reflective sensor is disclosed which prevents divergent light from a light source from being totally reflected by an interface between the package and the outside thereof and entering a light-receiving element without using a light-shield means and which allows an improved S/N ratio and reduced variations in performance. The reflective sensor includes a light-emitting element and a light-receiving element which are provided on a surface, and a light-transmissive member which covers the light-emitting element and the light-receiving element. The light-receiving element includes a light-receiving region which is spaced from the light-emitting element along the surface, and which light-receiving region is closer to the light-emitting element than an area on the surface that would be illuminated by unimpeded light rays which are totally reflected by an interface between the light-transmissive member and the outside thereof and are directed toward the light-receiving element.

Detection head

In two phases signals (A, B) outputted from a scale or a scale having a discontinuous portion provided in its incidental member to a light receiving portion, a region in which amplitudes of the two phases signals (A, B) are small corresponds to outputs when a reflecting portion lies in the scale in terms of rotation position, and a region in which amplitudes of the two phases signals (A, B) are large corresponds to outputs when a nonreflecting portion lies in the scale in terms of rotation position. An optical encoder for discriminating positions of a reflecting portion and a nonreflecting portion of a scale using a threshold value (L) to detect an absolute position based on a reason that when the signals (A, B) are arithmetically operated by an arithmetic operation processing circuit to obtain a sum of squares of the signals (A, B), change points in the amplitudes of the signals (A, B) are steeply obtained.

Optical encoder capable of detecting absolute position

At least one exemplary embodiment is directed to an optical encoder which includes a first diffraction grating having a desired optical effective aperture ratio at an appropriate gap position so as to eliminate and/or reduce high-harmonic components from the light intensity distribution of interference fringes and reduce high-order spatial frequency components overlapped on a displacement signal of the interference fringes formed by the first diffraction grating.

Optical encoder for measuring displacement

An optical encoder includes a cylindrical reflective scale, a point light source for irradiating the reflective scale, and light-receiving elements for receiving the light beams reflected by the reflective scale. The pitch of the reflective scale is set to an appropriate value such that the pitch of interference fringes formed by light beams that are reflected by the reflective scale is matched to the pitch of the light-receiving elements at a position with a desired gap.

Optical encoder and apparatus using optical encoder

An optical encoder includes a light-emitting unit, a scale with a discontinuous part, and a plurality of light-receiving elements arranged in relationship to a pitch of the scale. In the optical encoder, a light beam from the light-emitting unit reflects off the scale, and is received at the light-receiving elements. As a result of the processing of signals from the light-receiving elements, the discontinuous part is detected and the origin detection can be achieved.

Optical encoder with discontinuous optical grating

In an optical encoder, a plurality of light sources is controlled on and off so as to use light rays to irradiate an optical grating of a scale from a plurality of different directions. The light rays are received by a plurality of photoreceptor elements. Operations are performed using signals output from the photoreceptor elements. Accordingly, the relative position between the photoreceptor elements and the scale is detected precisely.

Optical encoder

A main scale of an optical displacement measuring apparatus has slits arranged on it at regular intervals, a part of which is a missing slit that does not allow light to pass through used for detecting the original point. An index scale has four sets of windows formed on it. The four windows are arranged with mutual phase differences of &#xbc; P, where P is the pitch of the arrangement of the slits. When a part of the missing slit overlaps with the index scale, no light reaches to photodiodes from the missing slit and only a partial light flux passes through a window, so that the light quantity decreases. An original point signal associated with the missing slit can be obtained by adding up the outputs of all the photodiodes.

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Yokohama, Japan

Masahiko Igaki