Measurement uncertainty evaluation of the three degree of freedom surface encoder

A three-DOF surface encoder can be used to measure the three translational degree of freedom (DOF) displacement of a moving table. A measurement uncertainty of the developed three-DOF surface encoder was systematically investigated to confirm its feasibility on the precision positioning of planar motion stage. An expanded uncertainty of 124.4 nm has been calculated in the measurement results of testing three-axis translational motions over a range of 2.5 μm. Among those error sources, cross-talk errors caused by misalignment existing in experimental setup were identified to be the largest error source.