ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 2 -- United States Patent no. 12,644,731, issued on June 2, was assigned to HEXAGON INNOVATION HUB GMBH (Heerbrugg, Switzerland).
"Opto-electronic encoder with a ball lens" was invented by Yves Salvade (St-Imier, Switzerland), Markus Sprecher (Grabserberg, Switzerland), Peter Kipfer (Widnau, Switzerland), Marcel Rohner (Grub, Switzerland), Tim Mayer (Widnau, Switzerland) and Beat Aebischer (Heerbrugg, Switzerland).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image based opto-electronic encoder for a joint, the encoder having a reading head for the first part of the joint and an optical system, comprising a ball lens for the second part of the joint. The ball lens has a front surface...