Publications

Measurement comparisons between optical and mechanical edges for a silicon micromachined dimensional calibration standard

Tran, Hy D.; Emtman, Casey; Salsbury, James G.; Wright, William; Zwilling, Avron

A mesoscale dimensional artifact based on silicon bulk micromachining fabrication has been developed and manufactured with the intention of evaluating the artifact both on a high precision coordinate measuring machine (CMM) and video-probe based measuring systems. This hybrid artifact has features that can be located by both a touch probe and a video probe system. A key feature is that the physical edge can be located using a touch probe CMM, and this same physical edge can also be located using a video probe. While video-probe based systems are commonly used to inspect mesoscale mechanical components, a video-probe system's certified accuracy is generally much worse than its repeatability. To solve this problem, an artifact has been developed which can be calibrated using a commercially available high-accuracy tactile system and then be used to calibrate typical production vision-based measurement systems. This allows for error mapping to a higher degree of accuracy than is possible with a typical chrome-on-glass reference artifact. Details of the designed features and manufacturing process of the hybrid dimensional artifact are given, and a comparison of the designed features to the measured features of the manufactured artifact is presented and discussed. Measurement results are presented using a meter-scale CMM with submicron measurement uncertainty; an optical CMM with submicron measurement uncertainty; a micro-CMM with submicron measurement uncertainty using three different probes; and a form contour instrument.