A wavefront sensor which takes advantage of the moire deflectometry has been constructed for measuring atmosphere
induced wavefront distortions. In this sensor a collimated laser beam propagates through turbulent
atmosphere, then a beam splitter splits it into two beams and the beams pass through a pair of moire deflectometers.
Directions of the grating's rulings are parallel in each moire deflectometer but are perpendicular in
the two beams. Using a suitable array of lenses and mirrors two sets of moire patterns are projected on a CCD
camera. A suitable spatial filter removes the unwanted frequencies. Recording the successive moire patterns by
the CCD camera and feeding them to a computer, allow temporal fluctuations of the laser beam wavefront phase
to be measured highly accurately. Displacements of the moire fringes in the recorded patterns correspond to the
fluctuations of two orthogonal components of the angle of arrival (AA) across the wavefront. The fluctuations
have been deduced in successive frames, and then evolution of the wavefront shape is determined. The implementation
of the technique is straightforward and it overcomes some of the technical difficulties of the Schlieren
and Shack-Hartmann techniques. The sensitivity of detection is adjustable by merely changing the distance
between two gratings in both moire deflectometers and relative grating ruling orientation. This overcomes the
deficiency of the Shack-Hartman sensors in that these require expensive retrofitting to change sensitivity. Besides,
in the moire deflectometry, the measurement is relatively insensitive to the alignment of the beam into
the device. Hence this setup has a very good potential for adaptive optics applications in astronomy. Since tilts
are measured in the Shack-Hartmann method at discrete locations, it cannot detect discontinuous steps in the
wavefront. By this method discontinuous steps in the wavefront are detectable, because AA fluctuations are
measured across the wavefront.
Specification of vibration modes, amplitudes, and damping coefficients of structures are crucial issues in civil and mechanical engineering. Several techniques have been used for this kind of studies, including holographic interferometry, speckle interferometry, and moiré technique. But, for a large-scale structure, the modal analysis technique is usually used. We use the time-averaged digital image of a sinusoidal pattern fixed on a vibrating 6-m iron I-beam to study in-plane vibration. The study includes specification of vibrating modes, amplitudes, and damping coefficients. Using a wide-angle high-resolution digital camera, successive images of the vibrating pattern are recorded in exposure times much longer than the vibration period and much shorter than the relaxation time. The visibility measurement along the images leads to the specification of the mentioned parameters.
The turbulence of the atmosphere puts an upper limit on the quality of the image of a ground object obtained by long-exposure photography from low or high altitudes in the atmosphere or in the space. By using good optics and high resolution film or CCD and a stable platform, this limit could be approached but not exceeded. A useful quantity for indicating the magnitude of this limit is the integral of the modulation transfer function (MTF) associated with the turbulence. In this work, we introduce a new method for measuring the MTF of the atmosphere in the surface layer, based on moire technique. In this technique, from a low frequency Ronchi grating, installed at a certain distance from a digital camera equipped with a tele lens, successive images are recorded and then transferred to a PC. By rotating each image by θ/2 and -θ/2, say ±3°, and superimposing them, a large number moire patterns are produced. The average transmittance function of the superimposed image gratings is measured in a moire fringe interval. The latter function is measured by scanning the moire pattern by a slit parallel to moire fringes. It is shown theoretically that from the Fourier transform of the latter function the MTF of the atmosphere can be deduced, if the MTFs of the imaging system and the grating are given or their effects are negligible. The atmospheric MTFs have been measured at different turbulence conditions. Also, we have studied the behavior of the atmospheric MTF respect to exposure time.
Atmospheric turbulence may have strong impact on astronomical imaging, aerial surveying, terrestrial geodesy, optical ranging, and wireless optical communication. Major effects are beam broadening, irradiance fluctuations (scintillation), and angle-of-arrival (AA) fluctuations. The interesting effects of atmospheric turbulence for optical propagation studies are the variation (gradient and fluctuations) of refractive index. The corresponding refractive- index structure constant, Cn2, is the parameter most commonly used to describe the strength of atmospheric turbulence. Besides, the Modulation Transfer Function of the atmosphere is measurable by Cn2. Good image quality requires Cn2 being as small as possible. In this work we present an easily applicable and accurate method, based on moire technique, for the measurement of Cn2 and its profile in the ground level atmosphere. In this method from a low frequency sinusoidal amplitude grating, installed at certain distance from a telescope, successive images are recorded and stored in a computer. By rotating one of the image by +θ, say 4°, and multiplying its transmission function by the transmission functions of the other images which have been rotated by -θ, a large number of moire patterns are produced. By finding the traces of the moire fringes in the patterns, the fluctuations of the image grating lines are obtained. Which correspond to AA fluctuations distribution. From the AA fluctuations distribution in successive patterns, Cn2 and its profile in vertical direction are deduced. This technique renders to measure some other atmospheric parameters which are discussed in the report.
The refractive index profile of optical fiber preform is measured by a nondestructive technique based on Talbot interferometry. In this technique the preform is placed between two ronchi ruling gratings of 10 lines/mm and the system is illuminated by an expanded and collimated beam of He-Ne laser. In this arrangement the 2nd grating is positioned in the Talbot image of the 1st grating and the preform axis is parallel to the gratings planes. To eliminate the effect of clad on the light beam deflection during the measurements, the preform is immersed in an index matching liquid. The phase front of the laser light over the 2nd grating can be monitored by analysis of the moire pattern which is formed over there. The analysis is done by means of 4-step phase shift technique. In this technique the second grating is moved in four steps of 1/4 of the grating vector and in each step the intensity profile of the moire pattern is recorded. The phasefront can be specified by using the recorded intensities. The refractive index profile of the preform can be calculated from the changes on phasefront while the preform is placed between the gratings respect to the case when it is absent. The whole procedure is automated and computer controlled by using a CCD camera to record the moire fringes, a stepper motor for linear translation of the 2nd grating and a code in MATLAB to control the system and measurements.
In glass casting or shaping processes, some times wavy and distortion defects are developed in glass sheets. Specifying the locations of these defects and measuring the deflections they cause are significant parameters in many applications. There are several techniques for observing and measuring these defects, but the technique we introduce in this work is more simple and flexible and can be easy installed in production line for quality controlling purposes. The presented deflectometer functions in the following way. The imaging system of the device forms an image of large-scale low frequency linear periodical pattern painted on a vertical plane on a transmission grating. The distance between the object grating (painted pattern) and the second grating is so that the frequencies of the image grating and the second (probe) grating are practically the same. There is a small angle between the lines of the latter gratings to form moire fringes. A CCD camera transfers the moire fringes to a PC. By applying phase shifting technique, which is realized by shifting the probe grating in definite steps in its plane in a direction perpendicular to its lines, the phase distribution due to imprecations in optical system and gratings, are specified, At this stage the defected sheet glass is installed between the object grating and the imaging system and the distorted moire pattern is processed as described before. The difference between two-phase distributions is the phase distribution caused by the defects in the glass, which can be easily converted into the required ray deflections. All the processes are carried out automatically in a time less than 30 seconds and the accuracy of the measurement is of the order of 20 arc seconds.
Specification of vibrational modes and amplitudes of structures are crucial issues in civil and mechanical engineering. Several techniques have been used for this kind of studies, including holographic interferometry, speckle interferometry and moire technique. But, for large-scale structures modal analysis technique is usually used. In this work we have used time averaging moire technique to study in plane vibrations of large structures. The study includes specification of vibrating modes and amplitudes of structures. The technique is applied by painting a suitable size linear sinusoidal reflectance pattern on the lateral surface of the structure. As the structure is put into vibration, using a wide-angle high-resolution digital camera, the image of vibrating pattern is recorded in an exposure time much larger than the vibration period. The visibilities of the image along a line parallel to the painted pattern line are derived by processing the reflectance distribution. By dividing the resulted visibilities by the visibility of the image of the static pattern we get the normalized visibility curve. The number of normalized visibilities equal to 1 provides the number of vibrational modes and the magnitudes of the visibility minima or the locations of the zero visibility give the amplitudes of vibration.
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