Micro-structured surface-element for high-accuracy position measurement by vision and phase-measurement

In interferometry sub-wavelength resolutions are achieved thanks to phase computations. The number of measurement points resolved per fringe depends on the signal to noise ratio and may vary from tens to billions. In this work, that principle of fringe interpolation by phase computation is applied to image processing for the construction of accurate position sensors based on vision. A micro-structured pattern is etched on a surface element and is used as a phase-reference signal similar to an interference fringe pattern. This surface element is fixed on the moving target of interest and is observed by a static vision system. Then target displacements are reconstructed and measured with a high accuracy by locating the phase-reference in the recorded images. In a first configuration in-plane position is retrieved with a resolution of about 10(-2) pixel for horizontal and vertical coordinates and about 10(-4) radian for the orientation. Thus nanometre displacements can be controlled by a diffractive optical system and micrometer-sized surface patterns. Furthermore, this method is self-calibrating since the phase-reference pattern dimensions are known accurately and then provide us with a size reference available in each recorded image. Different configurations allow the position measurement along the three-space directions while an interferometric set-up is able to locate the position versus the six degrees of freedom. Several measurements per second are performed with an up-to-date microcomputer thanks to the dedicated software developed.