Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080239298 | ADAPTIVE LIGHT-PATH SURFACE TILT SENSOR FOR MACHINE VISION INSPECTION - An adaptive light-path surface tilt sensing configuration is provided that identifies when a ray bundle is projected along a direction normal to a workpiece surface. As a result, the tilt of the workpiece surface may be determined. The surface tilt sensor may comprise an illumination and detector portion and an objective lens. The illumination and detector portion may comprise a light source, a collimating lens, a beamsplitter, a controllable ray bundle position control portion, and a photodetector configuration. These elements are configured to provide a ray bundle alignment sensing arrangement that provides a signal indicating when a projected ray bundle and a reflected ray bundle have the best degree of alignment, in addition to other functions. The best degree of alignment corresponds to a ray bundle that is projected along the direction normal to the workpiece surface provides. | 10-02-2008 |
20090027692 | REFERENCE SIGNAL GENERATING CONFIGURATION FOR AN INTERFEROMETRIC MINIATURE GRATING ENCODER READHEAD USING FIBER OPTIC RECEIVER CHANNELS - A fiber optic readhead and scale arrangement for measuring displacement provides a reference position indication. The scale includes a scale track comprising a first type of track portion providing first level of zero order reflectance, such as a grating, and a reference mark providing a second level of zero order reflectance, such as a mirror. The reference mark is configured with certain length or boundary spacing dimensions determined based on certain fiber optic receiver channel aperture dimensions in the readhead. | 01-29-2009 |
20090135435 | REFERENCE SIGNAL GENERATING CONFIGURATION FOR AN INTERFEROMETRIC MINIATURE GRATING ENCODER READHEAD USING FIBER OPTIC RECEIVER CHANNELS - A reference mark configuration for an interferometric miniature grating encoder readhead using fiber optic receiver channels is provided. The readhead includes “primary” fibers that provide reference mark primary signals processed to generate a reference signal with accuracy of approximately 0.2 microns. The readhead may include “secondary” fibers used to generate reference mark secondary signals processed to generate a reference signal with accuracy of approximately 20 nanometers. Spatial filter masks configured for the secondary fiber optic receiver channels provide two spatially periodic secondary signals arising from interference fringes outside of the receiving area of the primary fiber optic receiver channels. The secondary signals are out of phase with one another and their spatial frequency is higher than that of the primary signals. A signal crossing of the reference mark secondary signals is identified that is spatially adjacent to a signal crossing of the reference mark primary reference signals. | 05-28-2009 |
20120038930 | FIXED WAVELENGTH ABSOLUTE DISTANCE INTERFEROMETER - A fixed wavelength absolute distance interferometer including a first interferometer comprising a first light source transmitting a first light beam having a wavelength W toward a measurement target, a wavefront radius detector configured to provide a first measurement responsive to the wavefront radius at the wavefront radius detector, and a first path length calculating portion calculating a coarse resolution absolute path length measurement R; and a second interferometer comprising a beam transmitting device transmitting a second-interferometer light beam having a wavelength Λ, a beam splitting/combining device separating the second-interferometer light beam into reference and measurement beams and combining the returning reference and measurement beams into a combined beam, a second-interferometer detector configured to receive the combined beam and provide signals of a phase φ of the combined beam, and a second path length calculating portion configured to determine a medium resolution absolute path length measurement Z | 02-16-2012 |
20120081543 | IMAGE CORRELATION DISPLACEMENT SENSOR - An image correlation displacement sensor for measuring a displacement component along a direction perpendicular to a target surface, with a simple configuration. The sensor may include: an illumination portion ( | 04-05-2012 |
20120140245 | IMAGE CORRELATION DISPLACEMENT SENSOR - An image correlation displacement sensor is provided for measuring yaw rotation relative to a target surface using a simple configuration compatible with a fast measurement sample rate. The image correlation displacement sensor may include: an illumination portion ( | 06-07-2012 |
20120312972 | OPTICAL ENCODER INCLUDING DISPLACEMENT SENSING NORMAL TO THE ENCODER SCALE GRATING SURFACE - Disclosed is a displacement sensor configuration, comprising a scale grating disposed in a first direction; and a scale light imaging configuration which includes first and second optical paths and a detector including first and second detector portions. The imaging portion inputs a first scale light component output by the scale grating along the first optical path and transmits the first scale light component to the first detector portion, the imaging portion inputs a second scale light component output by the scale grating along the second optical path and transmits the second scale light component to the second detector portion, the first detector portion is configured to output a first displacement signal indicative of a displacement along the first direction, and the second detector portion is configured to output a second displacement signal indicative of a displacement along a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. | 12-13-2012 |
20130161499 | ADAPTABLE RESOLUTION OPTICAL ENCODER - A flexible optical displacement encoder configuration uses a source grating to illuminate a scale with structured light such that light from the scale is modulated with a beat frequency envelope which may have a relatively coarse pitch that matches a desired detector pitch. An imaging configuration provides spatial filtering to remove the high spatial frequencies from the modulation envelope to provide a clean signal in the detected fringe pattern. This combination of elements allows an incremental scale track pattern with a relatively finer pitch (e.g., 4, 5, 8 microns) to provide fringes with a coarser pitch (e.g., 20 microns) at a detector. Various scale resolutions can use a corresponding source grating such that all combinations can produce detector fringes that match the same economical detector component. | 06-27-2013 |
20130161500 | ILLUMINATION PORTION FOR AN ADAPTABLE RESOLUTION OPTICAL ENCODER - An illumination portion is used in an optical encoder which comprises a scale grating, an imaging portion, and a detector portion. A light source outputs light having a wavelength λ. A structured illumination generating portion inputs the light and outputs structured illumination. The structured illumination comprises an illumination fringe pattern oriented transversely to the measuring axis direction. A first filtering lens focuses the structured illumination proximate to a plane of the spatial filter aperture configuration. A spatial filtering aperture configuration includes a central portion that blocks zero-order portions of the structured illumination and an open aperture portion that outputs +1 order and −1 order portions of the structured illumination to a second filtering lens. The second filtering lens outputs the structured illumination to a plane of the scale grating with an illumination fringe pitch P | 06-27-2013 |