Design improvement of the three-beam detector towards a precise long-range 6-degree of freedom motion sensor system

This paper presents performance enhancement of the three beam detector through design improvement based on the error analysis. The three-beam detector is a novel sensor system that measures six motions (i.e., 3 translations and 3 rotations) of a remote object with high accuracy by implementing three laser distance sensors and a vision sensor. In this paper, finite element analysis and parameter analysis are applied to the three-beam detector to analyze its structural frames and sensor configuration, respectively, in terms of sensing error. By virtue of such a systematic, quantitative error analysis, this research has successfully improved the performance of the three-beam detector and thoroughly validated through field tests that it can detect the 6-degree of freedom motions of a remote target at 30 m with an accuracy of 1.51 mm and 0.18° and precision of 0.38 mm and 0.13°.