Patent ID: 8134688

Claim:
A movable body drive method in which a movable body is driven along a predetermined plane, the method comprising: a drive process in which a first direction positional information of the movable body in a first direction in the plane is measured, using a first head of an encoder system that includes a plurality of first heads which irradiates a first measurement beam on a measurement surface, parallel to the plane, on which a grating is arranged and receives the beam from the grating, and the movable body is driven along the plane, based on a measurement result of the first direction positional information and positional information, in a surface parallel to the plane, of the first measurement beam emitted from the first head used for measurement of the first direction positional information, wherein the positional information of the first measurement beam includes positional information of an irradiation point of the first measurement beam in a direction orthogonal to a measurement direction of the first head.