A modified two-axis surface encoder is proposed to separately measure both the in-plane displacement and the Z-directional out-of-plane displacement with minor crosstalk errors. The surface encoder is composed of a scale grating and a small-sized sensor head. In the modified surface encoder, the measurement laser beam from the sensor head is designed to be projected onto the scale grating at a right angle. For measurement of the X- and Y-directional in-plane scale displacement, the positive and negative first-order diffracted beams from the scale grating are superimposed on each other in the sensor head, producing interference signals. On the other hand, the Z-directional out-of-plane scale displacement is measured based on the principle of a Michelson-type interferometer. To avoid the influence of reflection from the middle area of the transparent grating, which causes periodic crosstalk errors in the previous research, a specially fabricated transparent grating with a hole in the middle is employed in the newly designed optical system. A prototype sensor head is constructed, and basic performances of the modified surface encoder are tested by experiments.
Keywords: Michelson-type interferometer; Z-directional measuring range; multi-axis measurement; reduction of crosstalk errors; surface encoder.