Heterodyne laser Doppler distance sensor with phase coding measuring stationary as well as laterally and axially moving objects

摘要

Both in production engineering and process control, multidirectional displacements, deformations and vibrations of moving or rotating components have to be measured dynamically, contactlessly and with high precision. Optical sensors would be predestined for this task, but their measurement rate is often fundamentally limited. Furthermore, almost all conventional sensors measure only one measurand, i.e. either out-of-plane or in-plane distance or velocity. To solve this problem, we present a novel phase coded heterodyne laser Doppler distance sensor (PH-LDDS), which is able to determine out-of-plane (axial) position and in-plane (lateral) velocity of rough solid-state objects simultaneously and independently with a single sensor. Due to the applied heterodyne technique, stationary or purely axially moving objects can also be measured. In addition, it is shown theoretically as well as experimentally that this sensor offers concurrently high temporal resolution and high position resolution since its position uncertainty is in principle independent of the lateral object velocity in contrast to conventional distance sensors. This is a unique feature of the PH-LDDS enabling precise and dynamic position and shape measurements also of fast moving objects. With an optimized sensor setup, an average position resolution of 240 nm was obtained.