We are developing a multilateration system at a reasonable cost that aims at an accuracy better than 50 µm determined with a consistent metrological approach. In this context, an absolute distance meter, developed in-house, is used as a unique telemetric system to feed the different measurement heads of the multilateration system through a network of optical fibers. The uncertainty contribution for a distance measurement of the telemetric system itself, in a controlled environment, is from 2 µm up to 100 m (k = 1). In this paper, the uncertainty contribution due to mechanical designs of the measurement heads and the target is estimated: the gimbal mechanisms we have designed are presented and their sources of error are identified, experimentally quantified, and minimized. At the end, we demonstrate that the current design of the measurement head does not induce errors higher than 2 µm on the measured distances and the design of the target does not induce errors higher than 9 µm.

Abstract-Home area networks will have to deal with the future multigigabit wireless systems that are emerging or are under development. These millimeter-wave radio systems achieve data rates up to several Gb/s per channel, but over short distance. So, to expand the radio coverage, we propose to introduce a radio-overfiber (RoF) infrastructure at home. This paper presents a complete study of a RoF system: the 60 GHz radio coverage is extended using a RoF link working at intermediate frequency with two hops in the air. An experimental setup of such an infrastructure has been realized and characterized. A low-cost solution, working at 850 nm, was chosen using multimode fiber and off-the-shelf millimeter-wave and photonic components. Finally, a real-time transmission between two commercial WirelessHD devices working at 3 Gb/s has been carried out.Index Terms-Home area network (HAN), IEEE 802.15.3c, IEEE 802.11ad, optical architecture, optical transducers, radio over fiber (RoF), WirelessHD.

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Large Volume Metrology is essential to many high value industries to go towards the factory of the future, but also to many science facilities for fine alignment of large structures. In this context, we have developed a multilateration coordinate measurement system, traceable to SI metre, and suitable for outdoor measurements or industrial environments. It is based on a high accuracy absolute distance meter developed in-house and shared between several measurement heads by fibre-optic links. Thus, from these measurement stations, multiple distance measurements of several positions of a target can be performed. At the end, coordinates of the heads and of the different target locations are determined using a multilateration algorithm with self-calibration. In this paper, the uncertainty of this multilateration coordinate measurement system is determined with a consistent metrological approach. First, 13 different sources of errors are listed and quantified. Then, thanks to Monte Carlo simulations, the standard uncertainty on a single absolute distance measurement is assessed to 4.7 µm. This includes the uncertainty contribution of the telemetric system itself, but also the contributions of the mechanical designs of the measurement heads and the target. Lastly, measurements of three-dimensional coordinates of target positions are performed in a control environment, then in a large workshop without temperature control: these measurements validate the uncertainty assessment of the system.

We are developing a telemeter based on the measurement of the phase accumulated by a RF sine wave during its propagation in air. This wave is carried by a laser beam thanks to an intensity modulation. The main limitation of this technique lies in amplitude-to-phase conversion occurring in the detection of this modulation. Therefore, we characterized in this paper this phenomenon for a given telemetric system and discuss on how to reduce its effects on the resolution and the accuracy of the distance measurement. Finally, a solution is implemented and tested outdoor, in real conditions of use. CONFIDENTIAL-FOR REVIEW ONLY draft MacroScale Recent developments in traceable dimensional measurements Measurement Science and Technology