In situ metrology system for micro-milling machine

In this paper, an in situ metrology system was developed for micro-machined part inspection. The system is capable of non-contact, on-machine measurement of a variety of geometric features encountered in micro-manufacturing applications with high accuracy and efficiency. The system combines high resolution distance measurement in the ZZ-axis from a non-contact confocal laser sensor with the scanning position information from linear encoders in the machine motion platform to obtain 3D coordinates of surface points. The 3D surface cloud data were used for both dimension measurement and surface characterization. A sample diamond-square-circle part was micro-machined and inspected in situ with the metrology system.