New developments in coordinate measuring machines for manufacturing industries

Advanced Manufacturing Institute, College of Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

^⋆ Correspondence: syedhammad68@yahoo.co.in

Received: 20 February 2013
Accepted: 24 April 2014

Abstract

There have been substantial improvements in measurement systems in order to meet fluctuating market demands. This rapid change and development in measurement technology has primarily been governed by demands of accuracy and precision from aerospace, automotive and other manufacturing industries. Coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) available with different technologies and configurations has efficiently been fulfilling customer demands for more than a decade. Though, current CMMs can meet needs of rapid and increased demands of customers to a greater extent but still there is lot of scope for improvement and development in CMMs. The globalization of manufacturing has resulted in development of variety of complex products and miniaturization of mechanical components. The technology of micro/nano-scale 3D measurement is still a bottleneck for industries. Therefore, precise and accurate system which is flexible enough to deal with complexities of parts and micro & nano range products has to be investigated. In this paper, comprehensive review concerning CMMs with capabilities to measure micro/nano features has been presented. This work has also discussed different methods to estimate measurement uncertainty, as well as performance evaluation of CMMs. Moreover, novel concepts such as intelligent CMM, multi-sensor CMM, virtual CMM have been presented.