The diaphragm-type stylus probe was developed for ultra-precision on-machine measurement (OMM) application. This probe is equipped with two diaphragms which are parallel and one capacitive sensor is used for detecting the vertical motion of end tip in the stylus when it is contacted to the optical freeform surface. For better performance of proposed probes, several design parameters such as axial stiffness and the lateral deformations were investigated with finite element analysis techniques. To verify the feasibility, the profiles of the master sphere ball were measured on the ultra-precision milling machine. The measurement results show that the proposed probe can calculate the radius of the circle within the accuracy of 0.1 ㎛ for the ultraprecision optical surface.
