Optical Range Finder

Recently, a great deal of interest has been shown in making accurate range measurements with good transverse definition. This capability makes it possible, in machine vision systems, to extract geometrical shape information from the images. In robot position sensing, it is important to determine the absolute distance instead of distance change so that noncontinuous measurements can be made without the need for calibration at start-up. A third application of great importance is to measure the shape and size of machined parts with a noncontacting sensor