Tactile or contact probes are the most common metrology technique in the coordinate measurement world, including the more specialized gear measurement community. Tactile probes can be active or passive, scanning or touch only, and may vary in cost and performance depending on the system itself. They are offered by multiple industrial companies as standalone OEM products (e.g., Renishaw) or only included in their coordinate measuring machines (e.g., Zeiss, Klingelnberg, and Hexagon). Their overall performance, especially their robustness and flexibility, have led to a gold standard for most metrology tasks.

In modern automotive vehicles, gear noise becomes more and more of an issue. The main reason is the reduced masking noise of the engine, which vanishes completely in the case of an electric driveline. Improved gear quality unfortunately does not correlate with a better noise performance in any case. High gear quality makes sure that the gear flanks are inside tight tolerances and that all teeth are nearly identical. Even if the running behavior of such gear sets shows a very low sound pressure level, the noise perception for human ears may be annoying.

Klingelnberg examines gear noise behavior and the evolution of the electric powertrain.