The perception threshold of the vestibular Coriolis illusion.

BACKGROUND: The vestibular Coriolis illusion is a disorienting sensation that results from a transient head rotation about one axis during sustained body rotation about another axis. Although often used in spatial disorientation training for pilots and laboratory studies on motion sickness, little is known about the minimum required rotation rate to produce the illusion. OBJECTIVE: This study determined the perception threshold associated with the Coriolis illusion. METHODS: Nineteen participants performed a standardized pitching head movement during continuous whole-body yaw rotation at rates varying between 5 to 50 deg/s. The participants reported their motion sensation in relation to three hypothesized perception thresholds: 1) a sense of undefined self-motion, 2) a sense of rotation, and 3) a sense of rotation and its direction (i.e., the factual Coriolis illusion). The corresponding thresholds were estimated from curves fitted by a generalized linear model. RESULTS: On average threshold 1 was significantly lower (8 deg/s) than thresholds 2 and 3. The latter thresholds did not differ from each other and their pooled value was 10 deg/s. CONCLUSIONS: The Coriolis illusion is perceived at yaw rates exceeding 10 deg/s using a pitching head movement with 40 deg amplitude and 55 deg/s peak velocity. Model analysis shows that this corresponds to an internal rotation vector of 6 deg/s. With this vector the Coriolis perception threshold can be predicted for any other head movement.

Underestimation of self-tilt increases in reduced gravity conditions.

BACKGROUND: During large angles of self-tilt in the roll plane on Earth, measurements of the subjective visual vertical (SVV) in the dark show a bias towards the longitudinal body axis, reflecting a systematic underestimation of self-tilt. OBJECTIVE: This study tested the hypothesis that self-tilt is underestimated in partial gravity conditions, and more so at lower gravity levels. METHODS: The SVV was measured in parabolic flight at three partial gravity levels: 0.25, 0.50, and 0.75 g. Self-tilt was varied amongst 0, 15, 30, and 45 deg, using a tiltable seat. The participants indicated their SVV by setting a linear array of dots projected inside a head mounted display to the perceived vertical. The angles of participants' body and head roll tilt relative to the gravito-inertial vertical were measured by two separate inertial measurement units. RESULTS: Data on six participants were collected. Per G-level, a regression analysis was performed with SVV setting as dependent variable and head tilt as independent variable. The latter was used instead of chair tilt, because not all the participants' heads were aligned with their bodies. The estimated regression slopes significantly decreased with smaller G-levels, reflecting an increased bias of the SVV towards the longitudinal body axis. On average, the regression slopes were 0.95 (±0.38) at 0.75 g; 0.84 (±0.22) at 0.5 g; and 0.63 (±0.33) at 0.25 g. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study show that reduced gravity conditions lead to increased underestimation of roll self-tilt.

Validation of separated source frequency delivery for a fiber-coupled heterodyne displacement interferometer.

The use of optical fibers presents several advantages with respect to free-space optical transport regarding source-frequency delivery to individual heterodyne interferometers. Unfortunately, fiber delivery to individual coaxial heterodyne interferometers leads to an increase of (periodic) nonlinearity in the measurement, because transporting coaxial frequencies through one optical fiber leads to frequency mixing. Coaxial beams thus require delivery via free-space transportation methods. In contrast, the heterodyne interferometer concept discussed in this Letter is based on separated source frequencies, which allow for fiber delivery without additional nonlinearity. This investigation analyzes the influence of external disturbances acting on the two fibers during delivery, causing asymmetry in phase between the two fibers (first-order effect), and irradiance fluctuations (second-order effect). Experiments using electro-optic phase modulation and acousto-optic irradiance modulation confirmed that the interferometer-concept can measure with sub-nanometer uncertainty using fiber delivered source frequencies, enabling fully fiber-coupled heterodyne displacement interferometers.

Heterodyne displacement interferometer, insensitive for input polarization.

Periodic nonlinearity (PNL) in displacement interferometers is a systematic error source that limits measurement accuracy. The PNL of coaxial heterodyne interferometers is highly influenced by the polarization state and orientation of the source frequencies. In this Letter, we investigate this error source and discuss two interferometer designs, designed at TU Delft, that showed very low levels of PNL when subjected to any polarization state and/or polarization orientation. In the experiments, quarter-wave plates (qwps) and half-wave plates (hwps) were used to manipulate the polarization state and polarization orientation, respectively. Results from a commercial coaxial system showed first-order PNL exceeding 10 nm (together with higher order PNL) when the system ceased operation at around ±15° hwp rotation or ±20° qwp rotation. The two "Delft interferometers," however, continued operation beyond these maxima and obtained first-order PNLs in the order of several picometers, without showing higher order PNLs. The major advantage of these interferometers, beside their high linearity, is that they can be fully fiber coupled and thus allow for a modular system buildup.

Relative optical wavefront measurement in displacement measuring interferometer systems with sub-nm precision.

Many error sources can affect the accuracy of displacement measuring interferometer systems. In heterodyne interferometry two laser source frequencies constitute the finally detected wavefront. When the wavefronts of these source frequencies are non-ideal and one of them walks off the detector, the shape of the detected wavefront will vary. This leads to a change in measured phase at the detector resulting in increased measurement uncertainty. A new wavefront measurement tool described in this publication measures the relative phase difference between the two wavefronts of the two source frequencies of a coaxial heterodyne laser source as used in commercial heterodyne interferometer systems. The proposed measurement method uses standard commercial optics and operates with the same phase measurement equipment that is normally used for heterodyne displacement interferometry. In the presented method a bare tip of a multimode fiber represents the receiving detection aperture and is used for locally sampling the wavefront during a line scan. The difference in phase between the beating frequency of the scanning fiber and a reference beating frequency that results from integration over the entire beam, is used for the reconstruction of the wavefront. The method shows to have a phase resolution in the order of ~25 pm or ~λ/25000 for λ 632.8 nm, and a spatial resolution of ~60 µm at a repeatability better than 1 nm over one week.

Fiber-coupled displacement interferometry without periodic nonlinearity.

Displacement interferometry is widely used for accurately characterizing nanometer and subnanometer displacements in many applications. In many modern systems, fiber delivery is desired to limit optical alignment and remove heat sources from the system, but fiber delivery can exacerbate common interferometric measurement problems, such as periodic nonlinearity, and account for fiber-induced drift. In this Letter, we describe a novel, general Joo-type interferometer that inherently has an optical reference after any fiber delivery that eliminates fiber-induced drift. This interferometer demonstrated no detectable periodic nonlinearity in both free-space and fiber-delivered variants.