Appeal No. 96-2194
Application 08/042,292
depending on rejected claims. Claims 10-12 have been allowed.
We reverse.
The invention is a probe for tracking a feature on a
workpiece. In the capacitive embodiment depicted in Figures 1-9,
the probe includes four rectangular capacitor electrodes 1-4, of
which two are mounted on each side of tab 12 of a printed circuit
board (Fig. 1; Spec. at 5, lines 9-11). As shown in Figure 8,
the outputs of first and second oscillators 62 and 64, which
operate at different frequencies, are applied to "transmitting"
electrodes 3 and 2, respectively. Each of these transmitting
electrodes is coupled via an inherent capacitance to each of the
"receiver" electrodes 1 and 4, with the amount of capacitance
being determined by the proximity and position of the workpiece
(Spec. at 5, lines 37-38). As shown in Figure 8, the receiver
electrodes 1 and 4 are connected to the inputs of inverting
charge amplifiers 66 and 67, respectively (Spec. at 7, lines 44-
47). The output signals from these amplifiers and the oscillator
signals are combined in different pairs in signal conditioning
electronics 70, 80, 81, and 82 to produce four "sensed field
signals" for application to processor means 83, which adds or
subtracts the sensed field signals to provide the location and
-2-
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Last modified: November 3, 2007