Performance of CMMs

The current development in manufacturing processes trend to flexible automation combined with higher accuracy. This requires flexible, automated and adequately accurate measuring instruments for inspection, toe. Today's CNC-co-ordinate measuring machines (CMMs) are capable, first and foremost, of fulfilling these requirements. In this field the verification of the CMM's accuracy is one of the most important tasks of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). In this paper calibration and test procedures concerning CMM's hardware and evaluation software as well are described shortly. The results show that the investigations mostly can lead to an improvement of the CMM's performance.