Accuracy calibration of the multi-light screen measurement system using array optical signal

Abstract

The multi-light screen measurement systems must be calibrated before being come into use, and a calibration method using live-fire practice is generally adopted. However, this method has many shortcomings, such as high cost, high risk and poor efficiency. To effectively improve the measurement accuracy of a multi-light screen measurement system, we propose a calibration method based on array optical signal in the paper. According to the measurement principle of the system, the proposed calibration theory is systematically described. The aim is to map the given measurement results in the form of vector into the specified time sequence. Furthermore, we develop a calibration platform whose core components are an arbitrary waveform generator and a tunable laser, and thus it can generate a set of six optical signals with an exact sequential relationship. After receiving the optical signals, some measurement results with errors are obtained by the system. Many calibration operations are performed to obtain the systematic errors, which are the statistical average of the deviation between the given measurement results and those with errors. Finally, we use the proposed calibration method combined with the error tensor and the traditional one to carry out comparison experiments. The results show that the proposed calibration method is superior to the traditional method in terms of comprehensive performance. In addition, the proposed calibration method relative to the traditional ones has some advantages, such as high efficiency, safety and low cost.