Patent ID: 8587170

Claim:
An actuator arrangement a rotational output, comprising: a housing defining an interior space; a motor supported within the interior space of the housing and having an output shaft, the output shaft including a worm gear; at least one intermediate gear supported within the interior space of the housing and configured to be driven to rotate by the worm gear; an output gear supported within the interior space of the housing for rotation about an axis and meshingly engaged with the at least one intermediate gear such that the output gear is driven to rotate about the axis by the at least one intermediate gear when the at least one intermediate gear is driven to rotate by the worm gear; an output shaft boss fixedly connected to the output gear for rotation therewith about the axis and configured to generate a rotational output at the axis when the output gear is driven to rotate by the at least one intermediate gear, the housing including an output opening via which the output shaft boss is accessed from an exterior of the housing; position encoding indicia fixedly arranged on the output gear, the position encoding indicia being optically detectable and configured to indicate an angular position of the output gear in relation to the axis; and an optical encoding detector disposed in the interior space of the housing and configured to optically detect the position encoding indicia.