The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 07, 1995
Filed:
Jun. 22, 1993
William F Marantette, Torrance, CA (US);
Optima Industries, Inc., Torrance, CA (US);
Abstract
Positions of the spindles (116-124) of a multi-axis drilling machine (130,132,140,142) are precisely measured by three scanning laser beams (165,167,169). The scanning laser beams are swept in oscillating sweeps across areas of motion of each of three corner reflectors (160,162,164) that are fixedly mounted to an unguided spindle carrying structural beam (132) that is driven by three screw actuators (150,152,154). Each scanning laser beam is projected from a fixed reference position and tracks one of the corner reflectors. Each beam locks onto its associated corner reflector, and, while locked on, an interferometer (180,190,198) measures incremental changes of the distance between each scanning mirror (166,168,170) and its corner reflector. Three measured distances (C1, C2, C3) between the respective corner reflectors and three reference positions from which the three laser beams are projected enable calculation of the position of the moving corner reflectors, and, therefore, the related drilling spindles relative to a reference system.