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:
Apr. 18, 1995
Filed:
Aug. 02, 1993
Dan Slater, La Habra Heights, CA (US);
Nearfield Systems Incorporated, Carson, CA (US);
Abstract
A wide range straightness measuring system of the present invention accurately determines lateral and angular displacement of a probe carriage of a cartesian robot. The system includes a laser aligned with an x-axis rail of the cartesian robot system which generates a laser beam having two polarization components. A pentaprism beamsplitter is disposed on an x-axis carriage aligned with the laser. The beamsplitter orthogonally splits the laser beam into an x-axis reference beam and a y-axis reference beam. An x-axis interferometer receives the x-axis reference beam and determines a relative position value of the probe carriage measured along the x-axis. A y-axis interferometer receives the y-axis reference beam and determines a relative position value for the probe carriage measured along the y-axis. A beam monitor receives a polarized multiplexed output of the y-axis interferometer and monitors the lateral shift of the energy centroids of the beam polarization components. Both lateral and angular displacement values of the x and y-axis reference beams can be obtained by measuring the magnitude of the lateral shift.