Method and apparatus to detect and report object displacement utilizing optical triangulation principles

摘要

A object displacement measuring system and utilizing optical triangulation techniques is constructed to determine the displacement of an object between a near and far sensing limits. In constructing the system to determine the object displacement relative to these sensing points, the mathematical calculations needed to determine the controlling transfer function are simplified. In alternate embodiments, the object displacement is measured relative to a measurement window having a fixed width and a known mid-point. With the use of the transfer function resulting from the use of either coordinate systems, an output signal generated by a digital-to-analog converter can be controlled digitally to set the gain and offset values of the output signal rather than adjusting these values using analog circuitry.