An electromagnetically actuated ball and socket joint for applications in 3D metrology

Abstract

Abstract The design, development and application of a novel magnetically actuated ball-and-socket joint has been presented here. The joint comprises a current-carrying conductor acting as the socket and a permanent magnet ball. External solenoid coils are employed to orient the ball in any desired direction. A novel strategy, based on providing a small vibratory input, is proposed to eliminate static friction. The joint has been fabricated and experimentally demonstrated to rotate over a large range of about ± 70 ∘ with a low cross-axis rotation, of about 8%, and with negligible hysteresis. The developed joint has been employed as a touch-trigger probe in a coordinate measurement machine to access all the three surfaces in a cuboidal corner of a sample.