Portable coordinate measurement machine
AssigneeFaro Technologies, Inc.
InventorsSimon Raab, Seyed Ali Sajedi, Marc Barber
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A portable coordinate measurement machine comprises an articulated arm having jointed arm segments. The jointed arm segments include a rotatable shaft, at least two spaced bearings and a housing surrounding the bearings and shaft wherein races for the bearings are formed by at least one of the following: (1) the shaft constitutes the inner race of at least one of the two bearings and (2) the housing constitutes the outer race of at least one of the two bearings.
Claims54
A portable coordinate measurement machine (CMM) for measuring the position of an object in a selected volume, comprising:
- a manually positionable articulated arm having opposed first and second ends, said arm including a plurality of rotary joints;
- a measurement probe attached to a first end of said articulated arm;
- an electronic circuit which receives the position signals from transducers in said arm and provides a digital coordinate corresponding to the position of the probe in a selected volume;
- and
- wherein at least one of said rotary joints comprises;
- a rotatable shaft;
- at least two spaced bearings;
- a periodic pattern of a measurable characteristic;
- at least one read head spaced from and in communication with said pattern;
- a housing surrounding said at least two bearings, pattern, read head and at least a portion of said shaft so as to define a singular component and wherein races for said bearings are formed by at least one of the following:
- (1) said shaft constitutes the inner race of at least one of said two bearings and (2) said housing constitutes the outer race of at least one of said two bearings;
- said pattern and said read head being associated with said shaft and housing such that said pattern and read head are rotatable with respect to each other;
- and
- wherein said singular component includes the functionality of measuring rotation, supporting rotation and transferring rotation.
A portable coordinate measurement machine (CMM) for measuring the position of an object in a selected volume, comprising:
- a manually positionable articulated arm having opposed first and second ends, said arm including a plurality of jointed arm segments, each arm segment including at least one position transducer for producing a position signal;
- a measurement probe attached to a first end of said articulated arm;
- a base attached to a second end of said articulated arm;
- an electronic circuit which receives the position signals from the transducers and provides a digital coordinate corresponding to the position of the probe in a selected volume;
- at least one of said jointed arm segments including a rotatable shaft, at least two spaced bearings and a housing surrounding said bearings and said shaft;
- and
- wherein races for said bearings are formed by at least one of the following:
- (1) said shaft constitutes the inner race of at least one of said two bearings and (2) said housing constitutes the outer race of at least one of said two bearings.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.