A novel optical technique for measuring 5-axis surface movement

This paper describes a novel optical system capable of measuring 5-axis (five degrees of freedom) object surface movement without the need for special surface preparation or stringent alignment. The compact optical system is based on electronic speckle photography (ESP) and is designed to be insensitive to out-of-plane movement. Experiments were conducted to measure the 5-axis motion simulated by a 6-axis motion system. The results show that the optical system accurately resolves the motion on every axis successfully, with the expected insensitivity to out-of-plane displacements. A possible application of the technique in strain measurement is also addressed in the paper.