Error compensation of a position measuring system with moving landmarks for a microrobot

The error in a position measurement system for a microrobot is described. The system consists of position-sensitive detectors and moving landmarks, which are lasers mounted on linear stages. The system requires accurate positioning of the linear stages. The position measurement accuracy was investigated by varying the angle formed by the linear stages. Under our experimental conditions, the maximum measurement error was about 0.2 mm, which was reduced to 5µm by using the method of least squares. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn, 91(3): 1–8, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecj.10067