Development of an angular displacement measurement technique through birefringence heterodyne interferometry

An angular displacement measurement sensor with high resolution for large range measurement is presented. The design concept of the proposed method is based on the birefringence effect and phase detection of heterodyne interferometry. High system symmetry and simple operation can be easily achieved by employing an innovative sandwich optical design for the angular sensor. To evaluate the feasibility and performance of the proposed method, several experiments were performed. The experimental results demonstrate that our angular displacement measurement sensor can achieve a measurement range greater than 26°. Considering the high-frequency noise, the measurement resolution of the system is approximately 1.2° × 10^-4. Because of the common-path arrangement, our proposed method can provide superior immunity against environmental disturbances.