Digital detection method design of the optic error of the beam expander

Abstract

The beam expander is a device used for extending the action radius of the optical system by removing the optical axis parallel. It is usually composed by a pair of plane mirror or two total reflection prism which is installed parallel. However, limited by manufacturing and installation progress, optical axis parallelism errors can be generated while it is hardly to guarantee the two plane mirror or the two total reflection prism installed completely parallel to each other. To detect the optical axis parallelism error of the beam expander quantitatively, a digital optical axis parallelism error detection method for the beam expander is designed taking advantage of the CCD technology and the Image processing technology. In this method, the reticule of the collimator is regarded as the target at infinity. Firstly, the reticule of the collimator images on the CCD camera directly. Keep the pose of the CCD camera unchanged. Then the parallel optical beam is shifted into the beam expander detected by removing of the pentaprism, and the reticule of the collimator images on the same CCD camera again. The location of the collimator reticule center image on the CCD camera is determined respectively through the corresponding image processing. The error of the beam expander is calculated by comparing the coordinate of the collimator reticule center image. An experiment platform is set up based on and the feasibility of this method is verified that the accuracy of the detection method is less than 3’’; this method has the advantage of simple operation, high practicality and high accuracy.