Towards laser Doppler vibrometry from unmanned aerial vehicles

Laser Doppler vibrometers are technically well suited to general application but they offer special benefits in a variety of challenging measurement scenarios which are now well documented and accepted. An interesting and potentially powerful example of such a challenging measurement scenario is one where the laser vibrometer is mounted on/in an unmanned aerial vehicle in order that autonomous measurement campaigns can be undertaken in remote and/or harsh environments. One important challenge to overcome in such a scenario is the measurement sensitivity to vibration of the instrument itself or indeed of any steering optics used to point the probe laser beam toward the target of interest. In this paper, recently reported means by which this measurement sensitivity can be rectified by simultaneously obtained correction measurements will be developed. Specifically, this development is intended to lead towards laser Doppler vibrometry from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with correction of instrument motion being presented herein for the first time from a single, rather than a pair of, uniaxial accelerometers.