Development of a micro-CMM with scanning touch probe and high-precision coplanar platform

This study develops a micro-CMM incorporating a scanning touch probe and a high-precision coplanar platform. The measurement performance of the proposed system was enhanced through the use of a rigid aluminum double-arch-bridge structure to support the scanning touch probe. For the working stage, a linear motor was used for long-stroke positioning and a piezoelectric actuator was then employed to fine-tune the positioning so as to achieve a requirement of highprecision. The platform has two characteristics: (i) the driving and measuring axes are designed along the same line so that Abbe error of the stage can be eliminated; (ii) the coplanar design makes the X and Y axes reach a goal of two-axis concurrent. The aforementioned two designs can reduce the error of the platform so that the micro-CMM reaches a positioning accuracy of ±0.1μm for a working volume of 80×80×40 mm 3 . Furthermore, the reliability of the probe mechanism of three degrees of freedom was analyzed and validated. The sensor coordinates a laser diode with Position Sensor Detectors (PSD) working with an optical path to measure placement of Z-axis and angle placement of XY-axis. By validation through an experiment, the three dimensional scanning touch probe developed by this study has a measuring range of ±1mm × ±1mm × 1mm with a unidirectional repeatability of 0.6μm.