Improved resolution three dimensional TV and video systems using integral imaging will be presented. The optoelectronics image display systems use moving micro-optics array lens technique for improved viewing resolution and and viewing angle. Experimental results including the use of an optically addresses spatial light modulator for image pickup and display will be presented.

This paper discusses a novel device for measuring 3D-surface profiles of objects using a grating pattern projection method. In particular, the configuration of a grating pattern generating and image processing system for calculating phase distribution from deformed grating images are described. In the grating pattern generating system, the grating is made from a liquid crystal (LC) with a stripe structure pattern which is driven by a pulse width modulation method. The intensity distribution made by the stripe LC grating is set to be triangular. The triangular distribution will be realized using low-bit gray levels. For instance, less than 11 gray levels will produce two patterns which is phase shifted by 1/4cycles; then, projection onto an object can be achieved twice. The deformed grating images posed by the object are detected by a CCD camera in the form of a two-phase image. The image processing system transforms the intensity distribution of the two-phase image into phase distribution which corresponds to the profile of the object. In this operation, linear regions are chosen where the intensities of the two-phase image change linearly by selecting the two-phase image alternately. The one cycle period is formed with four linear regions (quadrant), and the phase width in each quadrant is set to be π/2. Because the intensity distribution in the linear regions varies depending on the profile of the object, the phase distribution in each region is calculated using a simple linear operation using intensity variations or pixel number data.

Specular objects with large shape-change such as the concave-shaped mirror are used in the several industrial fields. However, concave-shaped mirror is difficult to measure the surface profile with non-contact method. In this paper, we describe the profile measurement method for concave-shaped mirror such as an ellipsoidal mirror and an aspherical mirror. This measurement method, based on the grating projection method, employed two cylinder-type gratings with different radius; measurement time is shorter than that of contact-method. The surface of ellipsoidal mirror, one of the concave-shaped mirrors, is measured and repeatability accuracy is evaluated.

This research evaluates the objectivity of textile goods by using the non-contact three dimensional measuring method. The object of the measurement is a seam and wrinkle of the shirt. The evaluation of textile goods was due to watching, and it was difficult to do an absolute evaluation. The existing three-dimensional measurement device is made to correspond to textile goods, and we convert into the series to which ruggedness information is decided by ISO and can output it. The measurement device uses the pattern projection method which introduces the phase shift, and can do high density measurement in a short time. Technical paper of ISO is made for this measurement device, and the work of standardization is proceeded.

An experimental shape measurement system that does not require peripheral sensors to track the position and orientation of the sensor-head is described in this paper. The prototype consists principally of a multiple-line light projector and a CCD camera. The light projection unit uses a low-power diode laser with a single line-generator and several dichroic cube beamsplitters. This simple hardware configuration creates three parallel line profiles with unique intensity values due to the transmission and reflection properties of the constituent beamsplitters. To eliminate background information, a bandpass filter with a peak response near the wavelength of the laser source is placed over the camera lens. The CCD camera acquires images of distorted light patterns as the sensor-head is swept across the object surface. The coordinate points of the parallel profiles in each view are recovered relative to the sensor head using a nonlinear image-to-object coordinate calibration technique. Where partial overlap exists between adjacent views, a multi-view registration algorithm can be applied. In the proposed registration method, the geometry of the surface in each view is approximated prior to computation of the sensor transformation. These synthetic surfaces are used to establish the corresponding features in adjacent views that are necessary to compute the translation and rotation parameters of the sensor-head. The potential of the surface-measurement method is demonstrated using narrow overlapping views.

With the development of micro-technology new measurement methods for microsystem components are increasingly required. Many Institutes have developed new methods for these requirements recently. In the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) a precise three dimensional measurement system is currently under development. The probing process of a 3d tactile sensor which has been developed in cooperation with the Institute for Microtechnology of the Technical University of Braunschweig, will be investigated using this precise 3d measurement system. The 3d precision measuring machine consists of a coarse and a fine stage. The coarse stage has a travel range of 25 mm ×25 mm ×13 mm with a resolution of 50 nm. The fine stage mounted on top of the coarse stage and driven by piezoelectric transducers in three axes has a travel of 80 μm and is controlled by integrated capacitive gauges with a resolution of 1.22 nm. A metrology frame has been added on the fine stage, consisting of a three axis laser interferometer for simultaneous measurement of the displacement in all axes. The specimens to be measured are set in the measurement frame and the probing ball of the tactile sensor is centered at the cross point of the three laser beams (Abbé measurement principle). The measurement system is aimed at a 3d uncertainly < 100 nm for the investigation of tactile sensors in a measuring range of 25 mm ×25 mm ×13 mm.

Generally, deep measurement range and high resolution are the directly opposed functions in the laser triangular measurement system. In other words, measurement range was made shallow to raise its resolution. But it is asked to go together to raise both functions caused by the complicated 3D shape of industrial products. We have coped with both functions by the individual optical technology and the image processing technology. At first, we have used axicon lens to minimize laser beam spot. Though it was possible to minimize laser spot with spherical surface lens only at the just focused position. But we have succeeded to generate thin spot laser beam which diameter is less than 20μm whole the so deep 300mm range with axicon lens. The second is high precision gravity center calculation method using gaussian curve fitting. This method could achieve the high resolution as well which contained speckle noise and so on. The system has been made practical for portable phone, and we confirmed the predominance of the system.

This paper presents an investigation of a stand-alone PZN-PT film-based movable micro-mirror and characterizes its precision level. Micro-mirrors have received considerable attention for applications in various micro-opto-electro-mechanical systems (MOEMS). For example, there is considerable interest in creating micro-mirror arrays for image display and telecommunication applications. Such optical applications require high precision position control of micro-mirrors. We present the development of stand-alone self-moving micro-mirrors on the basis of a single-film actuation mechanism. The mirror design provides for tilt motion using a single-crystal Pb(Zn₁/3Nb_2/3)O₃-PbTiO₃ (PZN-PT) film unimorph actuator. A prototype micro-mirror plate is designed to a size of 600 × 400 × 10 μm³ including actuation device. In this paper, it is shown that a prototype micro-mirror fabricated in our laboratories can be operated at frequency of 50 kHz.

An optical actuator has such features as controlled by optical energy in wireless and no generation of magnetic noise. A new type of an actuator driven by optical energy is proposed. The actuator is composed of three optical fibers as a leg jointed to a base. The optical fibers are vibrated by optical energy using photothermal effect. The photothermal actuator travels a distance of linearly 25 micrometer per second at 12mW input power. It is also possible to be controlled in two-dimensional movement by controlling the position of a vibrating optical fiber. The photothermal actuator can move not only straight but turn the right and left freely. It succeeds to control the photothermal actuator 12 degrees turn to the right and 13 degrees to the left in 90 seconds.

Recently, micro-actuators are attracted attention of advance technology. An optical actuator features characteristics such as energy supplied remotely in wireless and no generation of magnetic noise. In this report, a new type of a micro bubble actuator using photo-thermal effect is proposed The micro bubble by photothermal effect has advantage that to appear and disappear is easily to control. It is possible to drive micro-scale objects and an optical switch. An experimental set up consists of a laser diode with 450mW of power, water road and an optical microscope as observation. The micro bubble is produced irradiated laser beam on to black liquid and/or transparent liquid on the black surface. The size of micro bubble is from 50 to several hundred micro-meters. Three difference methods are proposed such as driving micro object, rotating micro object, and switching.

Optically driven small machines have such features as easily miniaturized in fabricaiont and as controlled by optical energy which is supplied in wireless. We reported an optically controled machine which moves like a caterpillar on the basis of photo-thermal effect. It constis of two parts; a body and feet. The feet can stick to the floor due to magnetic force and therefore it has such ability as ascending a slope, and ultimately it succeeded in climbing the vertical wall and moved underneath the ceiliing. A lot of applications are expected to this kind of machine. However, if the prupose is restircted to the movement inside the pipe, the structure can be more simplified. This time we propose a miniaturized machine which moves like a mole or an earthworm. It mainly consists of a shape-memory alloy and a spring, and nylon wires are attacehd at the head and tail. When the machine moves in the pipe, these wires cause difference in friction force bewteen the forward movement and the backward movement. Stretching and contracting are brought by photon-thermal effect of the body part constising of the alloy and spring. This machine is placed in a vinyl tube and controled by a light beam outside from a halogen lamp. In room tempertuare the alloy is kept stretched by the spring, but when the beam is projected ontothe body from outside, it contracts to the original size becasue photo-thermal effect brings much larger force than the stretching force due to the spring. Then the wires at the head prevent moving back and the wires at the tail easily slip. This fact brings forward movement of the machine. At this moment 25 seconds are necessary for one cycle of movement and the moving speed is 2.6 mm/cycle.

The paper presents the general interplay of coarse and fine tracking sub systems for an optical intersatellite link terminal. It briefly describes the hardware items that were designed by the Contraves Space led team to realise the required pointing, acquisition and tracking (PAT) functionality, especially in view of a commercial use of the terminals. Additionally, the control concept is outlined and test results are presented that were obtained during PAT sub system tests, used to verify the acquisition algorithms and the closed loop tracking performance.

We have considered the important functions for developing accommodation-assistance glasses which can assist eye focusing for aged person with presbyopia.We focused on keys to realize small and lightweight variable focusing lens and gaze distance detection. We devised new variable focusing lenses with control and gaze distance detection with a tunnel light path device. A prototype of glasses with devised elements was manufactured experimentally. From the result of trial use of them and experiments for evaluating characteristics,it was confirmed that proposed technologies were useful for realization of accommodation-assistance glasses.

Measurement of periodical contact force of the tapping stylus is very important for performance evaluation of soft material profilometry. So far, simulations are perfomred to estimate the force, and force calibration cantilevers are used to measure small contact force of AFMs. Since the tappign stylus uses larger tappign force compared to AFMs, micro cantilevers made of glass are developed for the force measuremetn of range from mN to μN.The levers are calibrated by using a standard cantilever made of silicon,which is fabricated by a micromachining process. A laser interferometre system is used for the calibration of glass cantilever spring constant. A laser Doppler vibrometer is used to measure the velocity of the cantilevers, and the force is estimated from the velocity signal by an integration.

While filling a container like rectangular cavity with a fluid, the level of the fluid raises with time depending upon the rate of fluid flow. The pressure at various coordinates could be estimated by solving the analytical equations involving the density and other properties of the fluid with the boundary conditions. The verification of the results can be made by comparing with the numerical results obtained and by experimental set up, if available. This paper presents the analytical equations for pressure while filling a rectangular cavitiy and proposes an opto-electronic pressure sensor for experimental verification of the results. The proposed pressure sensor employs a metallic flexible circular shaped diaphragm incorporating an opto-electronic coupling by means of a silver coated mirror attached to the diaphragm which in turn would deflect a laser beam continuously on a photo sensitive mosaic. Dynamic variation in pressure causes variations in deformations in the surface of the diaphragm elastically, and hence varies the angle of the mirror resulting in a variation angle of the deflected beam on the photo mosaic. With this variation in angle, the exerting pressure acting on the diaphragm is computed.

Recent advances in the fields of MEMS and MOEMS often require precise assembly of very small parts with an accuracy of a few microns. In order to meet this demand, a new approach using a robot based on parallel mechanisms in combination with a novel 3D-vision system has been chosen. The planar parallel robot structure with 2 DOF provides a high resolution in the XY-plane. It carries two additional serial axes for linear and rotational movement in/about z direction. In order to achieve high precision as well as good dynamic capabilities, the drive concept for the parallel (main) axes incorporates air bearings in combination with a linear electric servo motors. High accuracy position feedback is provided by optical encoders with a resolution of 0.1 μm. To allow for visualization and visual control of assembly processes, a camera module fits into the hollow tool head. It consists of a miniature CCD camera and a light source. In addition a modular gripper support is integrated into the tool head. To increase the accuracy a control loop based on an optoelectronic sensor will be implemented. As a result of an in-depth analysis of different approaches a photogrammetric system using one single camera and special beam-splitting optics was chosen. A pattern of elliptical marks is applied to the surfaces of workpiece and gripper. Using a model-based recognition algorithm the image processing software identifies the gripper and the workpiece and determines their relative position. A deviation vector is calculated and fed into the robot control to guide the gripper.

Concerning the disturbances at low speed, such as friction at zero crossings and the moment fluctuation of the motor, we explore the repeat control method rooted in study law to compensate the low-speed-disturbances, and the system's properties at low speed are improved greatly. Here we present our works. Section 1 is the introduction. The friction and moment fluctuation of the motor at low speed for the optoelectronic system are tested out which are shown in section 2. We introduce a repeat controller to the system to compensate the low-speed disturbances in section 3. Concerning the stability, a filter is added to the repeat controller. The experimental results are discussed in section 4. Not only the repeat control can overcome some low-speed-disturbances, but is more useful when tracking a periodic input signal.

We have been developing an image processing method for the automatic inspection of electronic devices and implemented it on PC. And this system was already fabricated in the real production line for collecting the practical performance. 2D edge detection method for evaluating the surface recognition of the printed circuit board was proposed so far, and the validity was clarified. In this paper the outline of this system is firstly explained and the performance of this system is reported in detail. However, since some defects appear at the top surface of the mold cannot be detected even with a set of this 2D inspection procedure, new 3-dimensional inspection of the flatness of the mold top surface was introduced. Depth from Focus Method was implemented in order to enforce this system to cope with 3-dimensional defects. An image processing method for evaluating the flatness of the face of the device is now developed by analyzing this 3D image. Affine transformation is employed here to reduce the geometric distortions inherent in the given images.

Nowadays, the image processing techniques are while applying to the food industry in many situations. The most of these researches are applications for the quality control in plants, and there are hardly any cases of measuring the 'taste'. We are developing the measuring system of the deliciousness by using the image sensing. In this paper, we propose the estimation method of the deliciousness of a sponge cake. Considering about the deliciousness of the sponge cake, if the size of the bubbles on the surface is small and the number of them is large, then it is defined that the deliciousness of the sponge cake is better in the field of the food science. We proposed a method of detection bubbles in the surface of the sectional sponge cake automatically by using 3-D image processing. By the statistical information of these detected bubbles based on the food science, the deliciousness is estimated.

In this paper, we propose a new Hough transform algorithm, Least Median of Squares (LMedS) Hough transform, which uses the measure of the least median of squares as the basis to estimate lines. This means that LMedS Hough transform can provide a new measure for finding lines as an alternative to the majority standard of the ordinary Hough transform and, therefore, that LMedS Hough transform can detect lines in the same way as LMedS line fitting procedure. In addition to this, because this algorithm is constructed on the Hough transform paradigm, the basic properties of Hough transform such as noise robustness, multi-line detection and global line detection are inherited in LMedS Hough transform algorithm.

This paper describes optical tomography using oblique and confocal fan-beam illumination devised for transparent-layered objects. This 3-D imaging method has the advantage of area-at-a-time sensing and it is free from disturbances caused by defects on the object surface, compared with the conventional confocal microscopy based on point-by-point sensing and co-axial illumination. The method was applied to LCD panel inspection and was successful in efficiently detecting foreign substances between the constituent layers in LCD. Furthermore, it was robust against scratches and dust on the protection film surface of the LCD.

This paper presents the emergence of photonic crystals as significant optomechatronics components, following optical MEMS. It is predicted that, in the coming years, optical MEMS and photonic crystals may go through dynamic interactions leading to synergy as well as competition. First, we present the Structured Defect Photonic Crystal (SDPCTM) devised by the authors for providing the freedom of designing photonic bandgap structures, such that the application of photonic crystals be greatly extended. Then, we present the applications of optical MEMS and photonic crystals to displays and telecommunications. It is shown that many of the applications that optical MEMS can contribute to telecommunications and displays may be implemented by photonic crystals.

In this paper the assembly of micro-optic components using image processing is introduced. An automated positioning process for laser resonators, which is handled manually until now, is implemented in a prototypical scale. For this work a cartesian precision-robot is used in combination with an image processing system including two cameras with different resolutions and perspectives. The components to be positioned are presented orderless on a pallet and have to be detected, gripped and aligned with an edge after calculating position and angle correction values. With a camera that is mounted vertically on the Z-axis of the robot the position of the components on the pallet is detected. Although vacuum grippers are typically not able to centre components one has to be used in this process as the effecting surface on the sides of the laser resonators may not be touched. To correct the errors that were caused by the suction of the vacuum gripper a second image processing is used to get values for a correction of position and angle. These images are taken with the help of a mirror that is positioned in an angle of 45°. With this mirror a horizontal mounted camera can take pictures of the gripper holding the laser resonator from underneath. Very good results could be achieved during an experimental evaluation, caused by the second image processing in particular. The results showed that it is possible to get a position error of only a few micrometers. In the whole process primarily the lighting system was identified as the critical factor.

Instrumented indentation testing in the nano-range with 'nanoindentation instrument' is playing an increasing role in the characterization of the mechanical properties of thin layers used in surface technology, microelectronics, micromechanics, optics etc. Several works concerning calibration of nanoindentation instruments were published in the last years, and the calibration of the performance of the depth sensing system in a nanoindentation instrument is now under way. In this paper, an optical probe interferometer for calibrating the depth measuring system in a Hysitron Triboscope has been presented, the principle and configuration of the interferometer are detailed. Error sources in the interferometry and their contribution to the interferometer performance have been discussed, which proves that the newly developed calibration device possesses the capability of sensing displacement with subnanometric accuracy.

Studies on opticla switches have been researched and develoepd for optical information networks for a highly developed information technology society. In reality, however, a manipulator cannot apply for multi input and output due to a rather small output displacement at the mirror parts inside the manipulator. Therefore, in order to develop optical switches capable of switching to multi input and output, we suggested an electrostatic driving-type 2-DOF micro-manipulator that was composed of one mirror with four screw type beams, four screw type electrodes on a substrate and one mirror support pyramid situated under the mirror. One mirror with four screw tuype beams for support of the mirror and four screw electrodes on the substrate wiht a one mirror support pyramid were made sparately. In the final step of the manufacturing process, these two parts were combined. The four beams are able to move by the electrostatic forces between the screw beams and the four screw electrodes on the substrate. We call this four beam type actuator an electrostatic suction actuator. In the results, the micro mirror is capable of a large angular output displacement about plus or minus 30 degrees in theory. The mnaufactured mirro and beams and the manufactured screw electrodes and mirror support pyramid, respectively are manufactured. In this research, after having studied the shapes and dimensions of micro-manipulators capable of a large angular displacement based on theoretical analysis, we also discovered that the suggested micro-manipulator can have a large angular displacemtn through the use of the suction phenomena. Moreover, our study suggestd a manufactured mirror and beams, and the manufactured screw electrodes, and mirror support pyramid for the optical switch.

A framework for disigning robust registration algorithms is proposed. Robust image registration is demanded in environment of ill-conditions occured in the real world. Coding is a major mechanism for their purposes and the robust registration methods are designed through the following four phases: positional combination, code generation from brightness difference, definition of similarity or dissimilarity, and statistical modelling or analysis. Reformalization of increment sign correlation (ISC) and orientaion code matching (OCM) are described in this view point. And then the application of ISC to borehole measurement is presented as the one of the real world tasks.

This paper describes a varifocal system having constant magnification that consists of a telecentric lens and a varifocal spherical mirror. The feasibility of using this system was made clear through a computational evaluation of the imaging characteristics and by experiments. The evaluated resolution and TV distortion were 100 lp/mm and 0.04 percent at a magnification of 2 in a visual field of 3.3 mm × 4.4 mm, respectively. Basic experiments using concave-mirrors having different curvature-radii showed similar results. A focal shift of 3.42 mm was obtained with a concave mirror having a 600-mm curvature radius without a change of magnification. Further, a prototype system using a pneumatically controlled varifocal mirror successfully demonstrated constant-magnification focusing. The varifocal mirror was a circular 320-μm-thick glass plate, the optical aperture of which was 6 mm in diameter. Its curvature was controlled pneumatically to shift the focal point of the varifocal system. The focal shift reached 1.1 mm without image impairment occurring. Focus measure analysis produced a 3-D focused image of a screw thread 2 mm in diameter from 50 images taken at 20-μm depth intervals, and a contour map of the screw thread is also presented.

For the mountedprinted circuit board inspection, the inspection system is required to detect the 3-D position of the components. To detect the 3-D positions of components,a 3-D vision sensor with multiple CCD cameras has been introduced. The system executes the stereo image processing to measure the 3-D position of he objects. For the electric components, the expected position on he PCB boards can be defined. So, the method of stereo image processing is simplified. Only preparing a measuremen line on every component is enough to detect its position. To perform the stereo image processing on the line, Dynamic Programming can be applied to perform the stereo matching between the locally deformed two images. Introducing the DP method to the stereo matching,the experimental system has been proved its precise 3-D position detection ability.

By analyzing the spatial fringe analysis method wiht the communication theory, it has been shown that the meauring accuracy of the method depends onthe cahracteirstics of ameasured object. It is also shown that not only the inherent limitation of the accuracy but also the dependence upon the S/N ratio of the fringe images exist inteh spatial fringe analysis method. It is shown that filtering technologies are useful to improve the measuring accuracy in fringe analysis.

We have developed a system for measuring the radius of curvature of a micro spherical surface whose radius is several 10 μm to several 100 μm. This measuring system can measure a spherical surface by two methods, namely a Linnik micro-interferometer and a micro-colimator. In additon, this measuring system can measure a flat surface by a double-beam interferometer. Furthermore, the change of the optical system among those three measuring methods can be easily done by moving only the lens and shutter. Therefore, in this measuring system, each of the three measuring functions can be utilized without changing the setting of the workpiece. Thereby, the setting eror among the three measuring methods can be eliminated, so that the measuring accuracy and the measuring reliability have been improved.

We present a coherent-optical measurement procedure for contactless distance sensing. The radiation source is a laser diode whose optical wavelength is randomly modulated about 3...12 pm (rms value) by noise modulation of the injection current at a bandwidth of up to 100 kHz. An interferometer serves as a coherent detector. The average beat frequency of the photodetector output is a measure for the absolute distance to the object. Combining the natural phase noise of the laser diode with an additional technical frequency-modulation process, sensitivity can be drastically improved, particularly in the short distance range. Due to the technical current modulation the coherent detection can be used well beyond the coherence length of the laser diode. For small target ranges the absolute distance resolution increases. This measurement behavior is advantageous for approach/docking applications, for example. The measurement procedure was verified experimentally in a distance range up to 4 m.

A new technique is proposed to keep a high spatial resolution when using both a reflection moire and using an integrating-bucket phase shifting method. In moire method an image includes high spatial frequency components of the gratings and the second harmonics of them besides moire fringe. These high frequency components cause measurement error when using phase shifting technique. By combining these two methods for a reflection moire we realized to eliminate both the high frequency components of gratings and the second harmonics of them with keeping high-speed measurement. We proved that theory of the new technique and good experimental results.

The linear positioning laser calibration setup of CNC machine tools is capable of executing machine tool laser calibraiotn and backlash compensation. Using this setup, hole locations on CNC machien tools will be correct and machien tool geometry will be evaluated and adjusted. Machien tool laser calibration and backlash compensation is a simple and straightforward process. First the setup is to 'find' the stroke limits of the axis. Then the laser head is then brought into correct alignment. Second is to move the machine axis to the other extreme, the laser head is now aligned, using rotation and elevation adjustments. Finally the machine is moved to the start position and final alignment is verified. The stroke of the machine, and the machine compensation interval dictate the amount of data required for each axis. These factors determine the amount of time required for a through compensation of the linear positioning accuracy. The Laser Calibrator System monitors the material temperature and the air density; this takes into consideration machine thermal growth and laser beam frequency. This linear positioning laser calibration setup can be used on CNC machine tools, CNC lathes, horizontal centers and vertical machining centers.

A model for quick estimation of the accuracy of the contactles 2D-measurement is developed. Perspective errors of entocentric lenses and distortion errors of entocentric and telecentric lenses are respected. The perspective error starts from the standard deviation of the working distance. The distortion contribution starts from the often publicized maximal distorint value in percent. The distorint contribution is divided in two parts: the size part considers the variation from calibration width and to width to measure, the field part considers the psoition variation of the piece under test in the field of view. Two graphs show typical and generally valuable functions. The superimpose of differnet contributions is realized as sum of quadrates. Due to this, the result can be interprted as the standard deviation of a contactless measured width. All results have the dimension pixel. Three examples are presented. The first one shows the accuracy limits in a typical machine vision application using different entocentric lenses. The second one discusses an entocentric lens measuring differnet object sizes. The third one uses a telecentric lens at same measuring condition. Here, the estimated accuracy is ten times higher.

Laser Direct Imager(LDI) that is capable of writing Print Wired Board(PWB) and Plasma Display Panel(PDP) patterns directly on work boards has been developed. Conventionally, PWB and PDP are manufactured by (1) making a photo mask of the original data pattern in a computer with a laser photo plotter and (2) copying the photo mask pattern onto a work board or panel by usually utilizing a UV exposure method. LDI, however, writes the patterns directly from the original data in the computer onto the work board or panel, thus revolutionizing the manufacturing process especially by eliminating the photo mask. In this paper, several key features of LDI are described.

A general problem in automation is the correct supply of assembly parts to assembly units. At the same time it is of decisive importance that the stable orientation as well as eventual bad quality characteristics of the assembly parts can be recognized to prevent a faulty assembly, a standstill of machine, or, in the worst case, a destruction of the assembly unit. In practice, among mechanical devices, optoelectronic inspectautomates are used more and more to solve this problem of correct sorting of assembly parts. These optoelectronic devices are checking the stable orientation and corresponding desired quality characteristics of assembly parts touch-less and automated. For solving this task it is necessary to calculate some features of the assembly part that has to be checked in the first step. The second step is to use these calculated features for a safe and stable classification of an assembly part. The calculation of the necessary features as well as the classification have to be realized in real-time. The amount of time that has to be kept, typically ranges from 5ms to 200ms depending on the assembly part that has to be checked and depending on the configuration of the optoelectronic inspectautomate. For that purpose features are calculated for a realized classification with which it is possible to check the stable orientation and corresponding desired quality characteristics for a multitude of assembly parts. But it is not possible to realize a safe and stable classification with these features, where the several stable orientations and with it the corresponding desired quality characteristics can only be classified because of small details in the acquired images of the assembly part to be checked. In the cases of application where these described features cannot be used for a safe and stable classification it is necessary to introduce an additional feature with which it is possible to fulfill these applications with optoelectronic inspectautomates, because of its special characteristics. THerefore it is possible to increase the field of applications for such devices. This paper will introduce the feature Region of Interest which gives the possibility of using small details of an assembly part for a safe and stable classification of its stable orientation and quality characteristics. Additionally, this paper will describe the general implementation of the featuer Region of Interest for an optoelectronic inspectautomate.

This paper presents a segmentation algorithm for image processing, which is able to distinguish the background's area from the object's area based only on their texture characteristics. The main goal is to develop a segmentation algorithm which does not need any prior information about the object (form, colours, textures, brightness etc.) and which is also robust against industrial conditions (such as shadow effects and electromagnetic noise). The developed solution is based on a predefined and structured background (with a specific frequency in the grey values). The background frequency is compared with the object's texture frequency using a Fourier analysis together with a classification algorithm. Two different types of classification algorithms have been applied: statistical covariance analysis and Neural Networks. The algorithm has been evaluated using real textile images under distinct conditions showing a very appropriated result with a segmentation error smaller than 0,5 percent in the average. The paper finishes with a set of conclusions and perspectives for future works.

In this paper, we present a method to estimate spatial uncertainties of a localized workobject using Bayesian estimation. We approch the problem of a sensor eye-in-hand calibration with error covariances by comparing the covariance propagation with Monte Carlo simulation and actual tests when the system noise level is changing. The spatial uncertainties are analysed using eigenvalues of the covariances in the direction of the respective eigenvectors. Results from the comparison between the different methods gives encouraging results and we believe that covariance propagation can be used in uncertainty estimation in different levels of noise.

Novel network architecture and key device technology are described for next-generation photonic networks enabling high-performance data communications. To accomplish full-mesh links for efficient data transportaion, time-shared wavelength-division multiplexing is the most promising under the limitation imposed on the total wavelength number available at network nodes. Optical add/drop multipelxing (OADM) using wavelngth-tunable devices is essential for temporal data link fomraiotn. Wavelength managemetn based on absolute wavelength calibraiotn is a key to OADM operations. A simple wavelength dscriminating device using a disk-shaped tunable optical bandpass filter under the synchro-scanned operation is useful for managing the laser wavelengths. High-speed data transmissions of greater than 40 Gbps necessary for efficient operation of the networks are also described. A key is photonic downconversion which enables phase deteciton for optical data streams at above the electrical limitation of around 50 GHz. This technique is applied not only to a phase-locked loop for synchronizing mode-locked pulses to an electrical signal in the much lower frequency range of around 10 GHz, but to timing extraction from 100-Gbps data streams.

We propose a novel optical ADM node construction which can add or drop a voluntary wavelength in network system. The node is composed of a disk filter that enables the transmission wavelength to be linearly tuned by rotating the disk substrate. When the collimated optical beam with multi-wavelengths transmits the disk filter, only the specific wavelength corresponding the disk filter position transmits, and then the wavelength can be dropped to the opposite fiber, and the rest of the wavelengths are reflected. When a voluntary wavelength corresponding to the disk filter position is added from the fiber of the opposite side, the add function can be achieved. As described above, the Add/Drop function of a voluntary wavelength can be easily realized by using this disk filter. The features of this novel ADM are described, and the optical reflection and transmission characteristics of a dielectric-multi-layer-film are simulated theoretically. The wavelength shift by the inclination of the disk surface is also discussed theoretically. The mechanical stability is examined and the high stability is confirmed. Finally, using this disk filter with collimated optical fibers, the optical Add/Drop performance is demonstrated and the data transmission characteristics for 2.5 Gbps is evaluated experimentally.

Highly selective tunable receiver has been studied experimentally for optical packet dense WDM systems. Performance evaluation of the receiver using new test methods confirms the feasibility of ultra-dense WDM spaced by several GHz. The receiver consists of a fiber loop which contains fiber delay line, tunable optical band-pass filters, an erbium-doped fiber amplifier and an optical switch, an optical switch at the receiver input port, and a photodiode followed by a switch at the fiber loop oputput port. Target packets are selected from input optical packet WDM signals by time and wavelength windows realized by the optical switches, and the tunable filters, respectively. Wavelength selectively enhancement is attained by the target packet multiple circulation in the loop. Optical packet ultra dense WDM test signal was generated by multiplexing 8 optical packets, where channel spacing ranged as narrow as from 0.62GHz to 3.62GHz in 500MHz step. The receiver fiber loop employed tunable disk filters, a gain stabilized EDFA, low PDL isolators and a magneto-opticla switch to realize high selectivity, high stability and low noise. The receiver has demultiplexed the target optical packets from optical packet ultra-dense WDM spaced by 1.1GHz, attaining high SNR and stable operation.

ln Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology, higher speed transmission and more channel numbers expand the transmission capacity. For its application, optical communication devices are required to be smaller and to have higher performance. We have developed the ultrasonic micro-motor and the micro thermoelectric device for Watch use. We are trying to apply these micro-mechanical devices to optical communication devices, which are variable optical attenuator, laser diode dependent on temperature, and so on. These micro-mechanical devices are expected to be new sources for the application in the optical communication field.

An autonomic network control scheme is presentd for wavelength-division multiplexing based photonic networks. An aboslute wavelength control scheme using a disk-shaped wavelength tunable optical bandpass filter is presented. The wavelength reproducibility of 0.02 nm for the entire tuning range at various temperatures is promising for the automonic wavelength management. To verify the control scheme, an optical add/drop multiplexing subsystem is constructed using optical switches utilizing oil latchign interferential tension effect and wavelength-tunable devices. Its detailed operating performances are experimentally evaluated. The switching speed of less than 20 ms and extinction ratios of less than 45 dB of the switching element are allowable in practical systems. Error-free transmission performance at 10 Gbps with negligible coherent cross talk at an intersection of the switch is obtained. The optical carriers generated by a wavelength-tunable ring laser usign a disk filter, are allowable for data transmissions. These results show that the autonomic entwork contorl scheme is feasible.

Single-frequency interferometer with bidirectional fringe counting is frequently used in accurate length measurements due to its high resolution, stability and compact hardware. Meanwhile, in order to obtain nanometric path length resolution, corrections have to be introduced to the phase quadrature signals of a real interferometer due to its systematic deviations such as phase quadrature error, dc bias, unequal gains, etc. Conventional approaches to correct nonlinearity in a single frequency interferometer are generally based on ellipse fitting proposed by Heydemann, i.e. fitting an ellipse to instantaneous phase quadrature signals as the interferometer path length is varying. Consequently, when interferometer path length variation is far larger than light wavelength, the highest correction accuracy could be obtained by the largest number of data points. In some cases like nanoindentation instruments in particular, however, the path length variation of an interferometer cannot be large enough to produce a closed Lissajou figure. Simulation and experimental results show that the accuracy of conventional calibration techniques drops quickly as the range of the optical path length variation reduces. A new approach to correct nonlinearity in single-frequency interferometry was introduced, which was based on the concept of model reference control technique. Firstly, a Neural Network (NN) model was created and trained to predict the instantaneous phase of an ideal interferometer. And then the NN model was used as a reference model due to such characteristic that its outputs would be quite different from those obtained by conventional instantaneous phase computation methods when the input data were not on an ideal Lissajou figure. Better correction results could be achieved through minimizing the phase error between the NN model outputs and the conventional computation results. Theoretical derivation and analysis of the new approach are detailed in this paper. Simulation and experimental results show that this new

A measurement method of birefringence dispersion by geometric phase is described. The measurement system consists of a polarizer, a quarter wave plate, a rotating analyzer and a spectrometer. The detected intensity by a spectrometer changes sinusoidaly along wave number. A phase shifting method is applied to analyze birefringence dispersion. The total amounts of phase change in all of wavelengths are same, because geometric phase produces by cyclic changes of a state of polarization on the Poincaré sphere. The birefringence dispersion of Babinet-Soleil compensator, polymer films and a liquid crystal phase modulator is measured. Compared measured these results with literature values of birefringence dispersion, measured data agrees well. The measurement results shown the birefringence dispersion measurement by geometric phase is available to practical applications.

The problem of quantifying minimum acceptable performance of multi-spacecraft interferometric imaging systems is considered. The noise corrupting the measurements is critical in the design of these systems and is dependent on the motion of the constituent spacecrafts. Minimum acceptable performance is defined in terms of the misclassification error of an image given that the set of images has been partitioned into two distinct classes. Two measures of the noise corrupting the measurements are considered: mean squared error(MSE) and the worst case error(WCE). It is shown that these are consistent with the goal of image classification in the sense that as image estimates converge in the MSE/WCE sense, the probability of misclassifying the image tends to zero. Error bounds are obtained on the MSE/WCE such that some minimum acceptable performance, in terms of the probability of correctly classifying an image, is acheived. An example is presented where the bandedness of the image of a planet is sought to be detected. Bounds on the noise corrupting the measurements are obtained such that a pre-specified level of performance is achieved for this case.

In recent years, intelligent autonomous mobile robots have drawn tremendous interests as service robots for serving human or industrial robots for replacing human. To carry out the task, robots must be able to sense and recognize 3D space that they live or work. In this paper, we deal with the topic related to 3D sensing system for the environment recognition of mobile robots. For this, the structured lighting is basically utilized for a 3D visual sensor system because of the robustness on the nature of the navigation environment and the easy extraction of feature information of interest. The proposed sensing system is classified into a trinocular vision system, which is composed of the flexible multi-stripe laser projector, and two cameras. The principle of extracting the 3D information is based on the optical triangulation method. With modeling the projector as another camera and using the epipolar constraints which the whole cameras makes, the point-to-point correspondence between the line feature points in each image is established. In this work, the principle of this sensor is described in detail, and a series of experimental tests is performed to show the simplicity and efficiency and accuracy of this sensor system for 3D the environment sensing and recognition.

This paper presents the development of a gripper system for optical fiber handling. The gripper, driven by a stack PZT actuator, is able to apply a precise gripping force through micro strain gauges instrumented on its fingers. Due to a special monolithic flexure-based mechanism, the gripper allows zero-backlash motion with an opening range of up to 800 μm. These features make the gripper suitable for the application of photonics assembly tasks, such as pigtailing and fiber array assembly processes, where very high resolution of motion and accurate force control are required.

This study implements a digital map building method for a mobile robot operating in an environment with obstacles by fusing sensor data. Required information for a map designing is supplied by fusion of different sensor data using sequential principal component method. We discus mathematical and experimental issues of the method. Application of the method for grid based map building is introduced and suitability in mobile robot navigation is demonstrated. Experimental studies are implemented on Nomad200 mobile robot successfully.

To develop an efficient teleoperation, reactive agent based robotic architecture is proposed, in which manual operation is aided by autonomously acting motor agents. Perceptual agents provide environmental information to the motor agents on need-to-know basis. This paper presents a perceptual basis, consisting of structured light sensor and perceptual agents, for remote operation of a circular saw. The sensory information is integrated with the motor agents and also visually displayed to provide effective operator interface.

The visual information obtained from CCD camera is vulnerable to external illumination and the surface reflection properties of object images. Thus, the success of extracting aimed features from images depends mostly on the appropriate design of illumination. This paper presents a visual inspection system that is equipped with a flexible illumination and an auto-focusing unit. The proposed illumination system consists of a three-layered LED illumination device and the controllable diffusers. Each layer is composed of LEDs arranged in a ring type, and a controllable diffuser unit is located in front of each layer. The diffuser plays a role of diffusing lights emitted from the LEDs so that the characteristics of illumination is made varied. This combined configuration of the LED light sources and the adjustable diffuser creates the various lighting conditions. In addition to this flexible illumination function, the vision system is equipped with an auto-focusing unit composed of a pattern projector and a working distance adjustable zoom camera. For the auto-focusing, hill climbing algorithm is used here based on a reliable focus measure that is defined as the variance of high frequency terms in an image. Through a series of experiments, the influence of the illumination system on image quality is analyzed for various objects that have different reflective properties and shapes. As an example study, the electrical parts inspection is investigated. In this study, several types of chips with different sizes and heights are segmented and focused automatically, and then analyzed for part inspection. The results obtained from a series of experiments confirm the usefulness of the proposed system and the effectiveness of the illumination and focusing method.

To detect the electrical fault of a thin film transistor (TFT) panel for the LCD, a polymer-dispersed-liquid-crystal (PDLC) modulator is used to convert the electric field of TFT substrate to an image. The PDLC changes its light transmittance proportional to electric field strength so that electric faults can be detected without physically contacting to the surface. Specific pattern signals are applied to the data and gate electrodes of the panel to charge the pixel electrodes and the image sensor detects the change of transmittance of PDLC that is positioned in proximity distance above the pixel electrodes. The image represents the status of electric field of the TFT panel reflected on the PDLC so that the characteristic of PDLC itself plays an important role to accurately quantify the defects. In this paper, a sample PDLC modulator is manufactured and compared with the commercially available one. The dynamics of PDLC modulator is analyzed and the image of electric field of the arrayed electrodes on TFT panel is acquired. The signal pattern to the electrodes of TFT panel and modulator should be selected based on the response characteristics of the PDLC for better image quality. The retention time of PDLC is a key factor for the determination of signal pattern.

LCD(Liquid Crystal Display) became one of the most popular display devices in these days. The TFT(Thin Film Transistor) substrate is the key part of active matrix LCD. TFT is an electrical device to activate a displaying cell. To display an image precisely, several millions of identical transistors are patterned on a wide glass panel. Since a minute damage on the pattern can causes a serious defect to display, it is important to inspect the pattern precisely. Taking the advantage of the fact that the pattern of good cell should be identical to that of adjacent cells, it would be a convenient way to compare a cell with its neighbor cells to find a defect. In practical applications, if the period of repetition could be represented as an integer number of digitized image pixel, it would be possible to find a damaged pixel readily. However, the period of pattern depends on the product size and cannot be determined as an integer always. In this paper, so called, pseudo-matching magnification algorithm has been introduced to solve the problem. A digital image was magnified and period of pattern can be determined as an integer from the processed image. It has been shown that the defects could be enhanced after the preprocessing of digital image. As a result, a TFT-pattern inspection system has been developed and it has been shown the proposed method is compatible for the inspection of repeated pattern.

Dark-filed imaging and template techniques are employed for on-line scratch inspection of 8-inch patterned wafer. Uneven optical-filed illumination caused by the imperfection of the lighting source, big field of view and unwanted reflection of local tiny sloping areas of inspected die, will result in many fake scratches. Discrete 2D wavelet positive and reconstruction transforms are introduced to preserve only authentic scratches. Integrated with image subtraction operation and gradient sorting of each defect, obvious and faint scratches can be effectively recognized.

Some manufacturing processes, such as satin finish on stainless steel parts for the watchmaking and biomedical industries, apply purely aesthetic, global criteria for their quality control. This control is currently performed by human operators, and is found to be subjective, due to variability in operator judgement. This project aims to develop a device for automatic, production-line classification of satin finish according to the aesthetic criteria currently applied in the watchmaking industry. We exploit two coherent light phenomena to produce features to classify the parts into the same classes indicated by human operators. The analysis of the optical Fourier transform and the scattering pattern are used to generate high-dimensional feature vectors for their subsequent classification. The vectors, corresponding to different regions of the part surface, are classified using Principal Component Analysis and Kohonen networks. Experimental results show that both optical phenomena provide features capable of discriminating between conforming and nonconforming parts. Classification is simple enough to afford an inspection in under 1 s and its robustness has also been verified. We have thus completed a first step towards a simple, production-line device capable of providing an automatic, objective evaluation based on aesthetic quality criteria.

Multiple off-the-shelf cameras can be configured to simultaneously provide redundant data, complementary information, and fast processing through sensor parallelism. The redundancy in the captured data can increase the accuracy of scene interpretation and improve system reliability by reducing the overall uncertainty associated with feature classification. Complementary information extracted from several cameras allows novel features in the environment to be identified that are normally impossible to detect with an individual CCD camera or range scanner. An unsolved problem in using multiple cameras for part identification or fault detection is associating the image features captured by one camera with that from another camera, or the same camera at a different point in time. In this paper, a spherical self-organizing feature map (SOFM) is used to combine and correlate both redundant and complementary features extracted from the images acquired by a multiple camera system. An important feature of the proposed technique is that the spherical SOFM develops a topologically ordered representation of the feature vectors derived from a high-dimensional input space. The unsupervised learning algorithm exploits hidden redundancies in the data set and ensures that 'similar' feature vectors will be assigned to cluster units that lie in identifiable neighborhoods on the spherical lattice. To illustrate the proposed methodology, a spherical SOFM that classifies the feature vectors acquired by a trinocular camera system is described.

The paper investigates the implementation of closed loop controllers of optomechatronic systems using optical components for signal transmission and control loop implementation. The system used for illustration is a DC position servomotor under state feedback control. The comparison is carried out between electric-electronic implementation and optical implementation for an environment with significant electromagnetic noise. For the optical implementation a photodiode is used for converting analog voltage output from position and velocity sensors into modulated 900 nm light, transmitted over a significant distance by a multi mode glass fiber (MMGF) to a controller implemented with a tunable optical amplifier. As an alternative, attenuators can also be used for controller implementation. The signal from controller is again transmitted 1550 nm MMGF to a photodetector that converts the signal into an analog voltage input to motor driver. Experimental results will illustrate the performance of the proposed optical implementation and advantages vs. electric- electronic implementation using a Lab View platform for data acquisition and display.

Various methods for multivariate calibration like Principal Component Regression (PCR) and Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) are evaluated for their use in the field of pattern classification. These methods have the advantage that they can deal with high-dimensional feature spaces and multi-collinear data, since they inherently reduce the dimension of the feature space to represent it by one single dimension. Additionally, they yield very simple linear classifiers, which can be used for real-time calculation. These properties make the methods particularly useful in the field of image processing, where one often find high-dimensional spaces with linearly dependent data and usually we have tight requirements on computational complexity.

We developed a simulator for the interference fringe type encoder using the Fresnel-Kirchoff diffraction formula. To optimize the design of the encoder's optical system, we used the simulator to analyze the influecne of the following factors: 1) the wavelength band, 2) the radiaont size, and 3) the shape of the diffraction grating surface.

We have developed diode pumped solid state green laser suitable for ophthalmologic applications. Beam parameters were designed by considering the coagulation system. We have lowered the beam quality to multi transverse and longitudinal mode on purpose to improve the speckle noise of the slit lamp output beam. The beam profile shows homogeneous intensity and it is very useful for ophthalmologic application. End pumping and short cavity configuration made it possible.

We propose a new technique of speckle interferometry which can measure a dynamic phase change in large deformation. In this method, we use a continuous tracking approach of the deformation we proposed previously, and apply a new technique, which can measure the large deformation by eliminating a noise term not correlating to the deformation, to the approach. A 450 μm in-line deformation of an aluminum plate was successfully tracked in an experiment.

In this research, we propose a 3D volume reconstruction method using x-ray images and present a series of calibration methods to implement it in an x-ray imaging system. In our previous work, we have proposed an advanced 3D reconstruction algorithm based on algebraic reconstruction technique(ART), called a uniform and simultaneous ART(USART). In practice, however, there are two main issues to implement it in a realized x-ray imaging system. The first one is huge computation time and memory required in achieving 3D volume, which is a common limitation in ART methods. The second issue is the problem on system calibration for determining the geometry of the x-ray imaging conditions which are necessary information in ART method. This work addresses solving out these problems : We propose a fast computing model of USART, where spherical voxel elements are employed in computation to reduce computation time and memory. And a calibration method is proposed here to identify the x-ray imaging geometry based on a cone beam projection model. For this purpose, a reference grid pattern is locally displaced to predetermined positions, and then their relative coordinates are determined by analyzing the image variations according to the displacements of the grid pattern. The validity of the proposed 3D reconstruction method is investigated from a series of experiments.

A new image reconstruction algorithm based on the genetic algorithms is proposed for two-component flow electrical capacitance system in this paper. Two times reconstructions are performed in once tomography, the first step is reconstructing the image of fewer pixel blocks and the second step is reconstructing image using genetic algorithm with the result of the first step is used in population initialization in order to improve the speed and accuracy of genetic tomography. With this method, cross-section image of two-component flow can be reconstructed with better quality and better accuracy in component concentration than SIRT algorithm.

Etching is a very important technique at MEMS micromachining. There are two kinds of etching processing, the one is wet etching and the other is dry etching. In this paper, wet selective etching with KOH and tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) etchants is researched in order to make a torsion mirror optical switch. The experiments results show that TMAH with superphosphate is more suitable at MEMS torsion mirror optical switch micromachining than KOH, and it also has good compatibility with IC processing. Also our experiments results show some different with other reported research data. More work will be done to improve the yield rate of MEMS optical switch.

We propose a new vertical-scanning profilometry which has potentiality of realizing high-speed measurement. The proposed profilometry measures 3-D shape by use of phase-shifting techniques with a large phase shift 2n π + π/2. With such large shifts, 2 pai phase ambiguities normally suffer precision measurements of phases. Therefore, the profilometry was equipped with two short-coherent-light sources of different wavelengths and a double-exposure camera, and measures the phases of two different wavelengths at nearly the same optical path difference. From the phases and a vertical-scanning step height, 3-D profile is calculated with nanometer precision.

In step-like deformations, discontinuous deformations, the techniques using a laser beam of single wavelength cannot measure the deformation amount. Because the deformation changes between captured specklegrams would be larger than the wavelength of the laser. We have developed the technique that can measure the large deformations having step-like discontinuities by using two laser beams of different wavelengths.

We face the problem of computer-vision aided robot grasping of objects with more or less random positions. This field is of vital importance in the further progress in flexible automation of industrial processes, since conventional methods using fixtures and/or vibration bowls are expensive and inflexible. We study various types of disorder: A) visually isolated objects lying in distinct resting modes on a flat homogenous conveyer belt, B) partially occluded objects lying in distinct resting modes on a flat homogenous conveyer belt, C) visually separated objects, unrestricted object-camera pose, and fully surrounded by background, D) partially occluded objects, unrestricted relative orientation, but with a sizeable fraction of their contour detectable using foreground-background separation, E) partially occluded objects with unrestricted pose and no help from foreground-background separation. The cases A), B), and - to some extend - D) are encountered in belt picking, while case E) is true bin picking. Since physical storage of products and components in industry is based on deep containers with many layers of somewhat disordered objects, the belt-picking concept is only the first step for achieving flexible, unsupervised parts feeding. We have developed and tested a generic, fast, and easily trainable system for the cases A) and B). The system is unique because it handles the perspective effects exactly so there is no restriction concerning object dimensions relative to the distance to the camera. We report on a strategy to be used in treating case C) using the principles developed for the cases A-B). We discuss possible strategies to be employed when going all the way to cases of D) and E).

The mask blank surface inspection system for the electron beam mask writing system (EB mask writer) has developed. This system, that has the small vacuum chamber attachable to EB mask writer, inspects a mask blank that is just before EB writing in vacuum environments. It can inspect whole area of the 230mm mask at 0.3micrometer sensitivity. It also can perform fast inspection by applying the original scanning algorithm for the laser beam. It has the wide detective range from 0.3 to 2.0 micrometers of particle size. It can distinguish sizes of particles in that range. The auto focus function is most important factor for maintaining the sensitivity.

Two types of electrostatically driven optical switching devices have been developed in this paper. An interferometric optical switching device realizes selective wavelength filtering by the interference of lightwaves between two half mirrors. Also, an evanescent coupling surface-output optical switching device realizes on-off switching by evanescent coupling and physical contact. Their basic characteristics are experimentally evaluated. By integrating these devices on a substrate, switching devices with wavelength filtering and on-off switching are proposed.

This paper briefly presents the design of several chief parts in automatic detection system for lifesaving light, as well as the real effect of system operation.

Investigation of surface profiling method for large aspheres becomes more and more important and imperative with the great development of the synchrotron radiaiton facility (SRF), since the latter puts greater demands on surface quality, shape and figure parameters of the optical elements used in itself. MEanwhile, things became more difficult because of the unique characteristics of the optics used in SRF. As a result, novel surface measurement methods and systems have to be developed to cope with such problems.

This paper deals with the synthesis of the determination of 3-dimensional grasping points for unknown object. This is achieved by two steps. First step is to find the whole 3-dimensional geometrical information for unknown object by using a stereo matching. In this step SMW method is employed to find the precision 3-dimensional geometrical information. Second step is to find the 3-dimensional grasping points by using neural network which is trained by grasping data sets resulted from optimization of which objective function is to minimize the force of finger tip and subjected to coulomb friction model with known object. The algorithm is verified by computer simulation.

A relief image focusing system is proposed here, contrary to the normal focusing systems using a flat image. The relief is mapping the panorama's depth by a scale depending on the objective parameters. Opposite to normal understanding, the relief is not static. It is formed synchronously with the forward-backward linear motion of the objective. Each pixel of the vision sensor is illuminated and interference of light waves takes place. As the objective moves, the intensity of the interfered optical signal changes between the internal sensor noise level and certain maximum as a function of time. The process of forming the signal in the relief image space is based on searching extremes of interfered optical signals at each pixel. A method of mapping the measurement scale of a monocular focusing distance-meter is presented in the paper. It is implemented by sampling the signals, digital measurement of the time intervals and the signals' amplitudes and joint processing of the obtained numerical values providing a limited error to portions of micron. The method contributes the vision systems to perceive panoramic view in wide distance ranges. It can work at a wide range of optical signals and is invariant to aberrations.

On the basis of the relation of polymer free volume and the stress and strain, a novel image measurement with computed digital tomography was developed for the polymer morphology during extrusion in the paper. The method synthetically utilizes the knowledge of nuclear physics, photo-electricity, polymer physics, computer technology and mathematics, the dynamic deformation and morphology of polymer can be visually obtained by the interaction of the atom of polymer or polymer chain and the photon beam to come from gamma ray, in which the photoemission, Compton effect and electron pair effect will be generated. The experimental result indicates the method can not only measure the dynamic deformation and morphology of extrusion polymer in the way of non-open, non-destroy and on-line, but also deduce the relationship between the mechanical properties and polymer morphology during extrusion.

In this paper, our aim is to develop a system that can not only maintain stable gap distance under 100nm but also compensate the tilting between a pick-up head and disk surface for near-field recording (NFR), which is known as a key technology for a next generation optical storage. Applying total internal reflection (TIR) to the air gap measurement, we design an optical sensor to measure the gap distances at three points. Stack and bimorph piezoelectric actuators are utilized for high precision control with nanometer resolution. To understand dynamic characteristics of the system, an analytical method for boundary coupled beam model is performed and verified by comparison with the results of the finite element method (FEM).

We have developed an optical multiple correlation system for pattern recognition. It has superior ability of pattern discrimination even though an input image contains an unknown and complicated background or noise, which often disturbs the pattern recognition in the real world application. A design method for the multiple correlation filters has been developed, in which correlation filters are synthesized with component images extracted from training images by the principal component analysis. It is shown the correlation filters designed by this method has better efficiency on the noise tolerance and the detection ability than the filters synthesized directly with all training images. An optical multiple-correlation system has been developed and it is applied to a vision system of the robot named 'Gazing Tiger', in which the optical multiple correlation system detects locations of human faces in crowds and the robot looks a human face producing largest signal of correlation. The developed optical system can operate well even in the crowd and in the complicated background. It denotes the superior ability of the multiple correlation system we have developed.

Optical measurements with coordinate measurement machines equipped with optical sensors, and video measurement machines, are clearly increasing in industry. Accurately manufactured two-dimensional standards, with a precision typically between 0.05 μm and 5μm, are used to check and calibrate these measuring machines. In order to start a calibration service for two-dimensional standards, a new calibration machine is currently under development at the Centre for Metrology and Accreditation (MIKES). In this paper we describe the mechanical design, properties and present a detailed uncertainty analysis of position measurement. By modeling and compensating mechanical error sources the required standard uncertainty level of 50 nm is achievable.

This paper describes self-localization of a mobile robot from the multiple candidates of landmarks. Our robot uses omni-directional vision system for efficient self-localization. This vision system acquires the visible information of all direction views. Our robot utilizes feature of landmarks that size of feature is bigger than that of others in image such as building, symbol tower, hanging banner etc. Our robot uses vertical edges and those merged region as feature. In our previous work, we found the problem that landmark matching is difficult when selected candidates of landmark belong to region of repeating the vertical edges in image. To overcome these problems, robot uses the merged region of vertical edges. If interval of vertical edges is short then robot bundles them regarding as the same region. Thus, these features are candidates of landmarks. In other words, candidates of landmark are vertical edges and those merged regions. Therefore, the extracted merged region of vertical edge reduces the ambiguity of landmark matching. Robot compares with the candidates of landmark between previous and current image. Then, robot is able to find the same landmark between image sequences using the proposed feature and method. The experiments implemented our campus and achieved the efficient self-localization result using robust landmark matching method.

A novel optical fiber proximity sensor for robot is proposed, which has fairly storng compensation abilty to such factors as variation of optical source power and object reflectance. Composed of four receiving optical fiber, the sensor has a simple structure. Utilizing rotation freedom degree of robot's manipulator, it can measure the orientation and distance of the manipulator relative to the object. This paper introduces the operating principle, the necessary and sufficient condition of the sensor's measuring pose, the optimum structure designing method which taking the mininum of measuring values relative error as objective function, emphasis is lays on the detecting technology based on Self Scan Photo Diode Array and the method for measure range enlarging,the sensor's measuring attittude adjusting and real-time data processing of sensor are also gone into detail.

The design, development and test of a fine pointing assembly (FPA) stabilising the line of sight of an optical free space data communication link between satellites is presented. The FPA is fast enough to compensate for vibrational perturbations of the platform, compact, and has low power consumption. A second FPA mounted in the optical terminal equipment allows to realise the point-ahead function required in bidirectional long distance optical intersatellite links. The FPA design is based on a 2-axes tip-tilt mirror suspended on a flexure membrane. Driven by 4 Lorentz actuators its position is sensed with differential capacitive sensors. The control electronics linearises the sensor characteristic, and implements a cascaded feedback scheme, with state space motion controllers, and transconductance current amplifiers.

A novel micromachined scanner with electromagnetic induction actuation principle is presented. It was manufactured by Si-LIG technique, where its mechanical structure was made by bulk silicon micromachining of 200μm thick (100) silicon substrate, and its electric circuit was made by deep UV lithography and Au electroplating. The monolithic mechanical structure is a 12×24 mm² rectangular frame connected by 4.5mm long torsion bars to a 4×10mm² rectangular rotor. On one face of the rotor is the electric circuit, a 70μm thick, single turn, electroplated Au coil with 3.3mΩ electrical resistance. The other face of the rotor was mirrored by a 1480Å thick Al film. An external magnetic circuit generated a constant 1150 Gauss magnetic field parallel to the coil plane and a 100 Gauss (peak value) field normal to the coil plane. Maximum deflection angle of 6.5°_pp at the 1311Hz resonance frequency was measured, and the quality factor Q was 402. The results shown that electromagnetic induction actuation is adequate for meso-scale systems and capable of producing resonant scanners with performance compatible with applications like bar code readers.

Active vision has been an important research area in recent years, which refers to the ability to move an image acquisition system in a controlled manner. This paper intends to introduce the active vision system with the autonomous robot competition in the background. We present some characteristics of the human oculomotor system in active machine vision system: smooth pursuit and saccade. Beside of this, zoom tracking was used to continuous adjustment of a camera's focal length to keep a constant sized image of an object moving along the camera' optical axis. Some experiments based on these technologies show the efficiency for gazing the ball in the robot competition.

This paper introduces a hybrid methodology that ensemble genetic algorithms and Support Vector Machine (SVM) in order to evolve optimal subsets of Gabor filters for efficient pattern classification. ALthough some filter design procedure are available for Gabor filters, high computations are needed and the efficiency of design is dependent on the particualr Gabor filter subset. In this paper to reduce the computational cost and improve the performance, a GA is used to search the space of all possible subsets of a large pool of Gabor candidate filters. The classification performance of SVM, an unknown data, together with filtering cost are used as measure of fitness that is used as feedback by GA to evolve better Gabor filter sets. This assembled system iterates until filters subset is found with a satisfactory classification performance and a significant reduced filters number.

Based on sensory analysis, quantitative evaluation method of the luminance non-uniformity, or 'mura', of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) was investigated. We conducted a perception test by using pseudo mura and this approach led to 'just noticeable differences' according to the various sizes of muras, intending to clarify the detection method and create an automated mura inspection process. The quality level of a mura can be described as a function between the mura area and the contrast, using the minimum perceivable contrast, or the 'just noticeable difference' (JND) contrast, at that mura size. We developed the detection method by using a hardware system based on a commercially available CCD camera and a PC and ensured that the mura regions were distinguished from the background area even with the JND contrast. This paper describes the research in human perception and the approach to adapt the intrinsic rule of sensory analysis to the quantitative evaluation of mura.

Segmentation and object recognition in point cloud are of topical interest for computer and machine vision. In this paper, we present a very robust and computationally efficient interactive procedure between segmentation, outlier detection, and model fitting in 3D-point cloud. For an accurate and reliable estimation of the model parameters, we apply the orthogonal distance fitting algorithms for implicit curves and surfaces, which minimize the square sum of the geometric (Euclidean) error distances. The model parameters are grouped and simultaneously estimated in terms of form, position, and rotation parameters, hence, providing a very advantageous algorithmic feature for applications, e.g., robot vision, motion analysis, and coordinate metrology. To achieve a high automation degree of the overall procedures of the segmentation and object recognition in point cloud, we utilize the properties of implicit features. We give an application example of the proposed procedure to a point cloud containing multiple objects taken by a laser radar.

On October 8, 2001, an Executive Order was signed creating the White House Office of Homeland Security. With its formaiton comes focused attention in setting goals and priorities for homeland security. Analysis, preparation, and implementation of strategies will hinge not only on how information is collected and analyzed, but more important, on how it is coordinated and shared. Military installations/facilities, Public safety agencies, airports, federal and local offices, public utilities, harbors, transportation and others critical areas must work either independently or as a team to ensure the safety of our citizens and visitor. In this new era of increased security, the key to interoperation is continuous information exchanged-events must be rapidly identified, reported and responded to by the appropriate agencies. For instance when a threat has been detected the security officers must be immediately alerted and must have access to the type of threat, location, movement, heading, threat size, etc to respond accordingly and the type of support required. This requires instant communications and teamwork with reliable and flexible technology.