Multi-axis positioning and measuring system and method of using

1. A positioning and measuring system including

a coordinate positioning machine comprising a movable spindle movable relative to a reference surface, a rotor rotatably connected with the movable spindle, an actuator for driving the rotor in rotation around a rotation axis,

a coordinate probe detachably connectable to the rotor for measuring coordinates of points of a workpiece along a path resulting from the composition of a translation movement of the spindle and a continuous rotation of the rotor,

characterized in that

the points are offset with respect to the rotation axis of the rotor.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the coordinate probe is detachably connectable to the rotor, the connection position being offset with respect to the rotation axis.

3. The system of claim 1 , further comprising actuator means for changing the offset between the measured point and the rotation axis of the rotor.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the coordinate probe is an optical contact-less probe.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the actuator can drive the rotor in constant rotation for several revolutions.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the coordinate probe comprises a chain of rotation joints linked by rigid arms.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein each joint comprises one joint rotation axis or more than one joint rotation axes, and one or more than one actuator, for driving the joint rotation axes in rotation.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein each joint comprise encoding means, for reading the rotation angles of the joint rotation axes.

9. The system of claim 4 , wherein the coordinate probe is a laser scanning probe or a multi-beam laser probe, or a fan laser probe.

10. A method of scanning a surface of a workpiece with a measuring system, the system comprising

a movable spindle movable relative to a reference surface, a rotor rotatably connected with the movable spindle, an actuator for driving the rotor in rotation around a rotation axis,

a coordinate probe detachably connectable to the rotor for measuring coordinates of points of a workpiece along a measurement path resulting from the composition of a translation movement of the spindle and a continuous rotation of the rotor, wherein the points are offset with respect to the rotation axis of the rotor, the method comprising the steps of:

operating the movable spindle along a spindle path

operating the actuator to drive the rotor in rotation at a predetermined angular velocity,

measuring, at predetermined time intervals,

a) the position of the spindle along the path

b) the angle of rotation of the rotor

c) the output of the coordinate probe

determining, from the output of measures a), b), c), the coordinates of points on the surface of the workpiece, along the measurement path.

11. A computer program product, loadable in the program memory of a controller of a coordinate positioning machine, comprising software elements for executing the method of claim 10 when executed by said controller.

12. A coordinate positioning machine comprising a movable spindle movable relative to a reference surface, a rotor rotatably connected with the movable spindle, an actuator for driving the rotor in rotation around a rotation axis,

a coordinate probe detachably connectable to the rotor for measuring coordinate of points of a workpiece along a path resulting from the composition of a translation movement of the spindle and a rotation of the rotor, further comprising a digital controller comprising a program memory, programmed in order to execute the method of claim 10 .