Autocollimator for measuring three angular and three linear deformations of industrial structures

Nowadays, linear displacement and angle measuring devices are widely used in the assembly, calibration and deformation monitoring of industrial structures. The Optic-electronic autocollimators for non-contact measurements are highly effective in these cases, since the measurement has a large measuring distance and high accuracy, but the existing autocollimation sensor for measuring angular and linear coordinates consists of two separate measuring systems and two reflectors, respectively. This disadvantage is a major obstacle for determining 6 motion coordinates at a point of the object. Autocollimator is suggested, capable of determining 6 object motion parameters (3 3 rotation angles and 3 linear displacements). The two main components of the autocollimator are the special reflector at the track point of the monitored object and radiating-receiver unit at the rigid base. A specially constructed tetrahedral prism is used as a reflector. Two emission marks are placed directly in front of the radiation receiver objective. Each emission mark after reflecting through the faces of the reflector produces 6 images, so with two emission marks 12 images are produced behind the reflector. The displacement of the object is calculated from the coordinates of the images obtained on the sensor. Mathematical models that determine the displacement of the object based on the image coordinates on the matrix photo receiver have been built. A comparative analysis between the optic-electronic autocollimators and the existing schemes was performed by computer simulation. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme has a smaller error. In addition, the simple and compact structure is also one of their outstanding advantages.