In large-scale metrology, when multiple instruments are used, the measuring field space can be large and the targets can be scattered. However, fixed-pointing distance measurement can limit flexibility. Therefore, there is an urgent need to improve automation and efficiency. This paper proposes a beam-guided laser detection module for absolute ranging that combines camera recognition and position-sensitive detection. The module uses a dual-axis fast steering mirror (FSM) driven by a compact field-programmable gate array (FPGA) to change the beam direction. The angular range for beam guiding is larger than ±20°. The mechanical structure and software are detailed introduced in the paper. This module can be directly combined with an absolute ranging system, such as frequency scanning interferometry or dual-comb ranging. It is expected that these systems will find broader applications in the industrial and geodetic survey fields.
KEYWORDS: Repetition frequency, Ranging, Distance measurement, Switching, Interferometers, Signal processing, Metrology, Frequency combs, Signal detection, Scientific research
Absolute distance measurement based on the dual-comb system is a promising tool for the large-scale measurement in the industrial field. There are two combs with slightly different repetition rates in the dual-comb system, and the distance information could be obtained by the asynchronous optical sampling (ASOPS). However, the measured range could be limited within the pulse-to-pulse interval range by the non-ambiguity range (NAR) without the extension. This paper proposes a method to extend the unambiguous range by changing the repetition range. Firstly, the method of dual-comb ranging and the principle of extending the non-ambiguity range were introduced. Secondly, the two implementations of changing single repetition frequency and switching repetition frequency were compared through simulation. Then, according to the simulated results, the effective conditions and theoretical maximum range of extended ranging were clarified. Finally, a long absolute distance measurement was designed and the ranging results of switching repetition frequency were compared with the conventional incremental interferometer, which proves that this method is reliable for extending the non-ambiguous range.
A multilateration system is a 3-dimensional coordinate measurement system, through measuring multiple distances between a target point and laser interferometry measuring instruments, with high precision and large measuring scare, which consists of three laser trackers or tracers at least. A quantifiable analysis method is proposed, for the effect of stations’ mutual position relationship on the measurement accuracy of the multilateration system. The method is based on a mathematical model which linearizes the relationship between the coordinate measurement error of the system and the distance measurement error of laser trackers. Some methods, optimizing the mutual position relationship of stations, are derived from the model, which can improve the measurement accuracy. The rationality of the methods is verified by simulations and experiments. The results show that the max error of the multilateration system improved is only 0.020mm, which is better than a laser tracker. The multilateration system, with the optimized layout of stations, has higher precision.
High-precision and long-range absolute distance measurement is a vitally important topic in large-scale metrology, and it has broadened applications in the manufacturing industry. Especially, the dual-comb time-of-flight distance measurement is a promising method combining with the advantages of fast speed and high accuracy. The measurand would be determined by asynchronous optical sampling (ASOPS) methods with a slight difference in repetition rates. Here, the home-built optical platform of the Er-fiber femtosecond frequency combs would be introduced with a repetition rate of around 200 MHz and carrier-envelope offset frequency of 20 MHz. Besides, the strategies of precision enhancement for dual-comb time-of-flight distance measurement with nonlinear intensity detection are discussed by the numerical simulation. The sampling interval could be optimized by choosing a proper range of repetition rate and difference of repetition rates. A fine curve fitting method is also proposed for further precision improvement. The results of numerical simulation would provide a valuable reference for the experimental process.
In order to realize high precision calibration of total station, an automatic compensation system for air refractive index has been developed, including sensor array system and data processing system. The sensor array system consists of 82 temperature, humidity and air pressure sensors, forming a dense sensor array, monitoring the changes of environmental parameters along the baseline. The data processing system automatically compensates the air refractive index for different measurement sections in real time. Based on the Changping baseline of National Institute of Metrology,China, real-time and time-delay experiments were carried out to compensate the refractive index of air for the measured distance of the total station.. The experimental results show that the maximum measurement error is about 1 mm when the environmental parameters with 14 seconds delay are compensated, nearly 10% of the data reach the error of 0.5mm. The time-delay compensated measured distance will affect the accuracy. It shows that the calibration accuracy of total station can be effectively improved by using the developed automatic air refractive index compensation system.
It is difficult for the traditional self-calibration algorithm to achieve high precision calibration when measuring over a
wide range. To overcome this shortcoming, an improved self-calibration algorithm for multilateration coordinates
measuring system is proposed. Different from the traditional self-calibration algorithm, the improved algorithm preselect
certain calibration points which is fixedly mounted on stable base, the lengths between specific points are
measured precisely by laser interference method. Then the precise lengths are taken as a part of optimization objective
function, and then the system parameters are determined by iterative computation. The effectiveness of the proposed
algorithm is verified by simulations and experiments. The results show that by using the improved algorithm, the max
error is only 8.9μm, the improved algorithm helps to improve the accuracy of the multilateration system significantly.
To measure the spatial coordinate accurately and efficiently in large size range, a manipulator automatic measurement system which based on multilateral method is developed. This system is divided into two parts: The coordinate measurement subsystem is consists of four laser tracers, and the trajectory generation subsystem is composed by a manipulator and a rail. To ensure that there is no laser beam break during the measurement process, an optimization function is constructed by using the vectors between the laser tracers measuring center and the cat's eye reflector measuring center, then an orientation automatically adjust algorithm for the reflector is proposed, with this algorithm, the laser tracers are always been able to track the reflector during the entire measurement process. Finally, the proposed algorithm is validated by taking the calibration of laser tracker for instance: the actual experiment is conducted in 5m × 3m × 3.2m range, the algorithm is used to plan the orientations of the reflector corresponding to the given 24 points automatically. After improving orientations of some minority points with adverse angles, the final results are used to control the manipulator's motion. During the actual movement, there are no beam break occurs. The result shows that the proposed algorithm help the developed system to measure the spatial coordinates over a large range with efficiency.
Large-scale laser comparator is main standard device that providing accurate, reliable and traceable measurements for high precision large-scale line and 3D measurement instruments. It mainly composed of guide rail, motion control system, environmental parameters monitoring system and displacement measurement system. In the laser comparator, the main error sources are temperature distribution, straightness of guide rail and pitch and yaw of measuring carriage. To minimize the measurement uncertainty, an equivalent common optical path scheme is proposed and implemented. Three laser interferometers are adjusted to parallel with the guide rail. The displacement in an arbitrary virtual optical path is calculated using three displacements without the knowledge of carriage orientations at start and end positions. The orientation of air floating carriage is calculated with displacements of three optical path and position of three retroreflectors which are precisely measured by Laser Tracker. A 4th laser interferometer is used in the virtual optical path as reference to verify this compensation method. This paper analyzes the effect of rail straightness on the displacement measurement. The proposed method, through experimental verification, can improve the measurement uncertainty of large-scale laser comparator.
Abbe error is the inherent systematic error in all large-scale laser comparators because the standard laser axis is not in line with measured optical axis. Any angular error of the moving platform will result in the offset from the measured optical axis to the standard laser axis. This paper describes to an algorithm which could be used to calculate the displacement of an equivalent standard laser interferometer and to eliminate an Abbe error. The algorithm could also be used to reduce the Abbe error of a large-scale laser comparator. Experimental results indicated that the uncertainty of displacement measurement due to Abbe error could be effectively reduced when the position error of the measured optical axis was taken into account.
A large-scale laser interferometric measurement standard device was designed and developed to improve the quantity transmission and calibration capabilities for linear measuring tools and large-scale high precision measurement instruments such as laser trackers, laser scanners and electronic total stations, etc. It consisted of an 80 meters granite guiding rail system, a length measuring system composed of three interferometers, a coarse-fine composite motion platform, environmental parameter (air pressure, temperature and humidity) automatic measuring system, and an image aiming system. The uncertainty of the standard device was analyzed, and a comparative experiment was made to determine the calibration capability of the built standard device. Experiment result indicated that the measurement uncertainty of this standard device to calibrate the other interferometers was better than 0.1μm + 1.0 × 10-7L(k = 2).
In order to improve the evaluation precision of spatial straightness error, new measurement setup using 4 LaserTRACERs were built at National Institute of Metrology (NIM). The LaserTRACER is a length measurement device with sub-micron accuracy. In principle, the LaserTRACER is a traceable interferometer. Experiment was implemented on a granite rail with air-suspending slider to test the spatial straightness of the rail. In the experiment, the retroreflector was mounted on slider and moves alone the rail after the spatial frame of axes was built. Using 4 LaserTRACERs, the spatial coordinates can be calculated by Multilateration algorithm. The optimal arrangement of LaserTRACERs is studied by simulation and experiment. The mathematical model based on GBT11336-2004 was built, and Least squares method is used in the spatial line fitting. The measurement principle and results were verified by comparison with SpatialAnalyzer and Metrolog XG.
According to camera calibration requirements of close-range photogrammetry system, novel camera calibration method
based on dynamic three-dimensional (3-D) optical plate is proposed. The dynamic 3-D optical plate is realized by
translational moving a 2-D optical mask plate with elaborately designed targets alone a granite linear guiding rail. 2-D
direct linear transformation for camera external parameter decomposition is studied, and mathematical model for camera
internal parameter calibration is built based on bundle adjustment. The feasibility of dynamic 3-D optical plate and
camera calibration method are experimentally demonstrated.
Large-scale measurement systems of range over 30m are main traceable devices of dimensional measurement for modern
large-scale advanced manufacture domain. High precision large-scale dimensional measurement devices with flexibility
and openness are made up of length measurement system, environmental measuring system, guiding rail system and
control system. In length measurement system using laser interferometers, zero error should be taken into account. This
paper proposed a novel method to eliminate zero error in large-scale laser interferometric measurement system. The
uncertainty of this system is improved experimentally.
In close-range photogrammetry, a length scale of photogrammetric system was given by a scale-bar. To achieving a
precision result which uncertainty is less than 10 micrometers, the uncertainty of scale-bar measurement should be less
than 3 micrometers. For this purpose, an approach was proposed according to the feature of retroreflective target (RRT)
on scale-bar; a measurement system consisted of a high resolution CCD camera, a laser interferometer and the lights was
established. The RRTs at two ends of the scale-bar was aimed by the CCD camera. The distance between two aiming
positions was measured by the laser interferometer. In this paper, a linear direct measurement model was founded; an
algorithm calculating RRT's gray centroid was presented. A series of tests were carried out under different light, different
illuminance and different aiming method respectively. The results indicated that the uncertainty satisfying the request of
scale-bar measurement in close-range photogrammetry.
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