Optical accelerometer design based on laser self-mixing interference

Abstract

A novel optical accelerometer based on laser self-mixing effect is presented and experimentally demonstrated, which consists of a mass-loaded elastic-beam assembly and laser self-mixing interferometer. Under external acceleration, an inertial force is applied to the mass, flexible beams deflect from their equilibrium position. The deflection can be read out by the self-mixing interferometer. In order to reduce the impact of higher harmonic, wavelet analysis is introduced to remove singular points. Preliminary results indicate that the resolution is 0.19μg/Hz 1/2 within a bandwidth of 100Hz. The optical accelerometer has the potential to achieve high-precision, compact accelerometers.