Patent ID: 8085385

Claim:
A movable body drive method in which a movable body is driven substantially along a two-dimensional plane, the method comprising: a drive process in which positional information of the movable body related to at least one of a direction orthogonal to the two-dimensional plane and a tilt direction with respect to the two-dimensional plane is detected, using a first detection device which detects positional information of the movable body in the direction orthogonal to the two-dimensional plane from measurement results using measurement light irradiated along the two-dimensional plane between an outside of an operating area of the movable body and the movable body, and a second detection device that has at least one detection position placed in at least a part of the operating area of the movable body, and detects positional information of the movable body in the direction orthogonal to the two-dimensional plane using detection information detected when the movable body is positioned at the detection position, and the movable body is driven based on the positional information detected by the first detection device in at least one of the direction orthogonal to the two-dimensional plane and the tilt direction with respect to the two-dimensional plane, and the movable body is also driven so that the positional information detected by the first detection device when the movable body is positioned at the detection position of the second detection device is adjusted, using the positional information detected by the second detection device.