An angle sensor with a laser rangefinder

This research describes an angle sensor based on laser autocollimation, with a laser rangefinder which is based on the principle of phase-difference distance measurement using a pulsed light source. The angle sensor and the laser rangefinder are combined with each other by sharing the same laser source for simultaneous measurement of the moving distance and two-axis tilt angles of a target mirror. A prototype sensor was fabricated and the evaluation experiment was conducted. Experimental results have shown that the sensor has a resolution of 1 mm for distance measurement and a resolution of 0.1 arc-seconds for tilt angle measurements.