Overview of self-mixing interferometer applications to mechanical engineering

We present an overview of the applications of self-mixing interferometer (SMI) to tasks of interest for mechanical engineering, namely high-resolution measurement of linear displacements, measurements of angles (tilt, yaw, and roll), measurements of subnanometer vibrations, and absolute distance, all on a remote target-representative of the tool-carrying turret of a tool-machine. Along with the advantages of SMI-compactness, low cost, minimum invasiveness, ease of use, and good accuracy, we illustrate the typical performance achieved by the basic SMI sensors, that is, the versions requiring a minimum of signal processing and discuss special features and problems of each approach. (C) 2017 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)