A novel laser displacement sensor with improved robustness toward geometrical fluctuations of the laser beam

Abstract

The measuring accuracy of conventional laser displacement sensors reduces over time as a result of geometrical fluctuations of the laser beam. Accordingly, the present study proposes a new laser displacement sensor in which the effects of geometrical fluctuations of the laser beam are minimized by means of a high-speed rotating optical diffuser. The performance of the proposed sensor is evaluated experimentally using a laboratory-built prototype. The experimental results show that the sensor achieves a higher measuring accuracy than a conventional laser displacement sensor based on a triangulation method. As a result, the proposed sensor provides an ideal solution for a wide range of automatic optical inspection and industrial applications.