Patent ID: 7908762

Claim:
A device for measuring the relative position of a material measure and a reading head, in which the material measure has an incremental scale; in which the incremental scale is non-magnetically scanned at a high resolution by a scanner belonging to the reading head; in which the material measure has permanent magnets, which are positioned at equidistant intervals in the direction of measurement and which establish continuous and adjoining segments within the incremental scale; in which the magnetic field created by the permanent magnets following each other in succession is recorded by at least one magnetic sensor belonging to the reading head; in which the magnitude of the recorded magnetic field is used to assign the position of the reading head to a step of the incremental scale within the segment defined by these permanent magnets; and in which a Wiegand wire device belonging to the reading head produces segment-counting pulses upon traversing the permanent magnets and these pulses are counted and permanently stored in the storage component.