Korbinian Prause successfully defended his doctoral thesis dealing with the development of a highly miniaturized single-shot point distance sensor and a spectrometer free areal optical confocal metrology system. The thesis project was completed through a cooperation between the 3Dvisionlab at the University of Applied Sciences Kempten (Prof. Dr. Layh) and the ITO at the University of Stuttgart (Prof. Dr. Herkommer) and was submitted to the University of Stuttgart.
The dissertation presents two approaches for novel and improved measurement techniques, in
the area of optical confocal surface metrology.
Firstly, a highly miniaturized endoscopic point distance sensor based on a spatial confocal
measurement principle is presented. The sensor utilizes a new technique called spatial confocal
point distance measurement. A special feature of the proposed sensor design is the high
degree of miniaturization through femto-second direct laser writing and the use of optical fiber
bundles, which enable an endoscopic application.
The second part of the dissertation will present a novel method for chromatic confocal
metrology, that enables high-speed and high-resolution one-shot areal surface metrology
without the need for a spectrometer. After deriving the theoretical basis of the approach, an
optical design is conducted and verified using a preliminary optical simulation, After the design
of a suitable housing and implementation of a calibration and processing algorithm, the
experimental validation and the acquired results will be presented.
In summary, this work adds two novel measurement techniques to the field of fast in-line optical
confocal metrology.