Development of a steel ball center alignment device based on Michelson interference concept

Abstract

This study presents a ball center alignment method based on the Michelson interferometer where one of the reflecting mirrors is replaced by a lens and steel ball. By locating the ball away from the focal length of the lens, the beam is reflected as a spherical wave. The interference ring formed by the planar and spherical waves can be clearly observed using a camera without a lens. The distance of the offset of the ball center can be enhanced by more than 140% using this method. A fast ring profile fitting method can reduce circle fitting time to around a third of that needed for Hough transformation.

Three Degrees-of-Freedom Optical Spindle Error Motion Measurement Device

“…A method that combines a laser interferometer with geometrical optics allows three-dimensional measurements to be made using interference fringe deviation. (15) However, in addition to these methods being very expensive for simple spindle measurement application, the rates of image capture and data processing are generally too low for use with spindles rotating at a high speed. A method employing an artificial reference object, such as a sphere or a cylinder, with a ball lens and a plano-concave mirror has been described.…”