Analysis of Machining Errors for a Laser Reflector and the High Precision Retrieving Method
J-Y. Zhang, C-F. Cheng, J-R. Zhu and B. Xu
The pyramid prism is widely applied in laser ranging as a reflector. But the machining errors are inevitable, which lead the reflected light to deviate from the direction of incident light and change the waveform. The errors are including rectangular angle errors, reflecting surface errors and refracting surface errors. Here we analyse the influences of these errors to the reflected light and study the relations between them. The details of the error retrieval method and data processing are presented and the prism errors are detected by a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor. The actual experiments show that the errors’ detection is with high accuracy.
Keywords: Laser reflector, machining errors, high-precision, error retrieval method, pyramid prism, dihedral angle error, flatness error, least squares estimate