Remote Fiber Optic Angular-Orientation Sensor Using Phase Detection of Two Orthogonal Oscillating Polarization Vectors

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Authors
Hofler, Thomas
Brininstool, Michael R.
Newmaster, Jeffrey T.
Garrett, Steven L.
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Advisors
Date of Issue
1990-09-18
Date
Publisher
The Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy, Washington, DC (US)
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Abstract
A method for remotely detecting the angular position of a rotatable code wheel is provided by generating two sine wave modulated light beams which are orthogonally polarized with respect to each other. The beams are combined and then directed through a polarization filter mounted on the code wheel. The combined beam incurs a phase shift with respect to a reference signal which depends upon the position of the code wheel. The combined polarized beam provides angular position resolution between zero and ninety degrees, but lacks quadrant resolution. Two other light beams are directed to a two channel digital mask pattern imprinted on the code wheel. The mask pattern encodes these latter beams with "on" or "off' pulses to provide quadrant resolution. The beams are converted to digital electric signals which are received by a programmable read oly memory (PROM). The PROM provides an output corresponding to the angular position of the code wheel to a display.
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Patent
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Patent
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Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
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This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.
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