Assessment of the mechanical errors of a prototype of an optical multilateration system.

We are developing a multilateration system at a reasonable cost that aims at an accuracy better than 50 µm determined with a consistent metrological approach. In this context, an absolute distance meter, developed in-house, is used as a unique telemetric system to feed the different measurement heads of the multilateration system through a network of optical fibers. The uncertainty contribution for a distance measurement of the telemetric system itself, in a controlled environment, is from 2 µm up to 100 m (k = 1). In this paper, the uncertainty contribution due to mechanical designs of the measurement heads and the target is estimated: the gimbal mechanisms we have designed are presented and their sources of error are identified, experimentally quantified, and minimized. At the end, we demonstrate that the current design of the measurement head does not induce errors higher than 2 µm on the measured distances and the design of the target does not induce errors higher than 9 µm.

Transportable distance measurement system based on superheterodyne interferometry using two phase-locked frequency-doubled Nd:YAG lasers.

We describe a transportable distance measurement system based on synthetic wavelength interferometry. Two frequency-doubled Nd:yttrium aluminum garnet lasers at 532 nm are used to generate a synthetic wavelength of approximately 2.5 cm. A nonpolarizing interferometric system has been set up to eliminate polarization cross-talk issue. A superheterodyne detection was performed to measure the synthetic phase and to determine absolute distances. The capability to achieve fringe interpolation of 2pi/5600 has been demonstrated and an agreement in distance measurement at the 4 microm level has been achieved, compared to an optical interferometric 3 m long displacement bench.