High-accuracy error-reduction method for 3D complex shape measurement with local-maximum-power-based technique of FMCW

To expand the measurement target from that containing simple cylindrical-shaped components to complex-shaped components that have several directional tilted surfaces, we determined an issue in measuring the rough surfaces with laser distance measurement. The issue is that laser speckle causes measurement error, which amount, we found, can be determined by the diameter and irradiation angle of the measurement laser beam. We then developed two error-reduction techniques that are based on the optical properties of a detected waveform and power. We conducted a basic experiment and a feasibility study with actual samples, to evaluate the distance measurement performance of targets with various surface roughness and irradiation angles. The roughness and angle range of the evaluation was determined considering actual measurement needs in parts manufacturing. We confirmed that the measurement error, whose maximum value was nearly 80 μm, decreased to less than 20 μm using our proposed local-maximum-power-based technique.