Reference phase shift determination in phase shifting interferometry

Abstract

The phase shifting technique has recently seen application to many types of interferometers, including holographic, speckle and moiré systems for strain analysis. In these applications, close control of the phase shifts may be impossible due to the effect of mechanical vibrations, and this presents difficulties when extracting the phase information, since the reference phase shifts are generally assumed to be known. In this work, several approaches to the problem of determining the reference phase shifts in a perturbing environment are critically evaluated using computer simulations. The analyses provide a general relationship between precision and reference phase shift errors and demonstrate the performance of each method as certain idealised fringe pattern error parameters are varied. A practical example confirms the predictions of the numerical simulations and demonstrates the feasibility of using reference phase shift estimates to improve data reduction procedures.