PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN THE USE OF LASER MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES WITH MACHINE TOOLS

SUMMARY The introduction of laser light sources has resulted in developments of interferometric measurement techniques. Simple and robust interferometers with photoelectric detection and automatic electronic counting methods can be considered for precision measurements in industrial environments and on machine tools. The potential accuracy is very great, but will be realised in practice only if attention is paid to the mechanical design. Fully automatic measuring systems are available commercially, but simpler semi-automatic systems would be satisfactory for many applications.