High resolution wide angle optical position detector

• Main Author: Tan, Chang Kian
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/5147

A wide angle high resolution position sensing system for telerobotic system endpoint tracking and position calibration has been developed and tested. Compared to existing commercial products, the system developed has the following important features: (a) wide angle detection without any moving parts; (b) high resolution; (c) fast response; (d) low cost; and (e) robustness. The system consists of a light source, a simple optical mask, a CCD camera and a basic signal processing system. The optical mask contains specially arranged pinholes, each is dedicated to sense the position of the light source when it is within a small designated solid angle. The solid angles associated with adjacent pinholes overlap sufficiently to ensure continuity of the position sensing. The position is sensed through processing the pattern of the few light spots cast through pinholes on the mask onto the CCD sensor. Depending on the pinhole arrangement, the signal processing needed to determine the light source angular position can be cut down significantly. In general, the optical mask can be in any convex shape with the pinholes arranged in any known and easily processed pattern.