New Absolute Arm Range

Eight years after the launch of the first ROMER Absolute Arm, Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division has unveiled its new Absolute Arm range. A ground-up redesign has seen one of the world’s most recognizable portable measuring arms modernized to meet the needs of today’s metrology users, with a key focus on improved usability and versatility without compromising on speed and accuracy.

A standout feature of the new Absolute Arm is its modular wrist design. This allows both the R55 Laser Scanner and the pistol grip to be completely removed, facilitating easy probing in tight spaces. When reattached for laser scanning applications, a variety of grip sizes are available to ensure a perfect fit for every user. The new wrist also now features a display screen that allows for measurement result oversight, profile switching and calibration right at the point of measurement, reducing time spent switching attention between the arm and its control computer.

“Over the last eight years we’ve received a lot of positive and constructive customer feedback, and hopefully people will see how this has informed our design,” says Anthony Vianna, product manager for the Absolute Arm range. “Many customers told us they needed to measure in smaller and smaller spaces, like cavities or inside complex fixtures, and it was that sort of direct-from-the-user intelligence that drove us to create the most compact scanning configuration on the market today.

“We examined everything about the arm: how people were using it; how users measure different parts; how they move their arm around their facility; how the arm communicates with them; how to make the arm more serviceable. And that process is what brought us to where we are today – with a new arm that offers improvements in every single area, across accuracy, speed, efficiency, weight, serviceability and versatility.”

This new Absolute Arm range retains all the features that made the previous generation of ROMER Absolute Arm systems so successful. These include the proprietary Absolute Encoders that eliminate referencing and warm-up times and diagnostic reporting, as well as low-friction rotating grips and a unique counterweight system that facilitate easy movement and measurement. Also notably still present is the capacity to measure at full speed without a reduction in accuracy.

The new Absolute Arm models are also available in a 6-axis version designed for dedicated probing applications. Within this category is the new Absolute Arm Compact, which assumes position of the previous ROMER Absolute Arm Compact as an accurate portable measuring, with accuracy now to within just 6 microns. The full Absolute Arm range is available across seven sizes, with measurement radiuses from 1.2 to 4.5 metres, and three levels of accuracy, resulting in 36 unique arm configurations – an arm for every application.