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Auto Collimator s

Autocollimators are precision devices used to measure small rotations around optical axes, primarily for inspection rather than as part of sensor systems. They combine a collimator and a telescope to detect deviations in reflective surfaces, allowing for high-accuracy measurements of straightness or flatness. Electronic autocollimators are most common today, providing quick and precise measurements, often to the 1/2-1/4 μm level.

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2 views

Auto Collimator s

Autocollimators are precision devices used to measure small rotations around optical axes, primarily for inspection rather than as part of sensor systems. They combine a collimator and a telescope to detect deviations in reflective surfaces, allowing for high-accuracy measurements of straightness or flatness. Electronic autocollimators are most common today, providing quick and precise measurements, often to the 1/2-1/4 μm level.

Uploaded by

Momanyi Eric
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Autocollimator

Autocollimators are devices for precise measurement of small rotations around axes orthogonal to an
optical sighting axis.

• Autocollimators are more often used as inspection devices than as integral parts of a sensor system for
servo controlled machines.

• Both manual and electronic autocollimators are available, although the latter are most widely used
today.

• An autocollimator is actually the marriage of a collimator to a telescope. A collimator takes diverging


light (e.g., light from a bulb) and focuses it into a nondiverging column of light (i.e., focus the light at
infinity).

A telescope, on the other hand, takes light from a source at infinity and focuses it onto a point: thus
when the angle of incidence of the light from infinity on the telescope changes, the position of the
focused image on the focal plane of the telescope also changes. Because one focus of the telescope is at
infinity, the axial position of the target mirror does not affect the position of the focused image. An
autocollimating telescope is an instrument that combines a collimator and telescope into a single unit.

• The measured angle is independent of the distance of the target.


The components of a typical electronic autocollimator system:

The basic function of an autocollimator is to detect and measure a deviation in the position of a
reference reflective surface. The autocollimator projects a collimated beam of light onto a reflective
surface.

• When a deviation in the position of that reflective surface occurs, a deviated beam of collimated light
returns to the autocollimator.

Autocollimators provide a last, simple method to measure straightness or flatness of a surface. such as a
bearing way or surface plate, a mirror mounted to a sled is incrementally moved along a straight path
(linear or crisscross).

• At each incremental stop, the autocollimator is used to measure the slope from which elevations can
then be derived.

• Properly used, an autocollimator can check the straightness or flatness of a surface to the 1/2-1/4 μm
level in an order of magnitude less time than would be required to set up a laser interferometer and a
straightedge.
Applications of Autocollimators

• Measures minute angle deviations

• Determines repeatability and accuracy of rotary axes

• Visible laser source allows rapid alignment

Autocollimator

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