Fringe-to-pulse counting demodulation of a laser interferometer for primary vibration calibration

A high accuracy and real-time amplitude-phase demodulation method based on the pulse counting of optical fringes is proposed for a laser interferometer to realize vibration measurement in primary vibration calibration system. The two orthogonally analog signals with high frequency are converted into two digital signals through the comparison module instead of a high-speed data acquisition device. Then one displacement increment during a quarter period of the digital signal can be obtained by the high-frequency clock through comparing the four states of two orthogonally digital signals. The output rate of the displacement value can be adjusted by sub -sample according to the vibration frequency. The experimental results from the proposed method get a good consistence with that from the traditional sine approximation method in the primary vibration calibration, not only for homodyne interferometer but also for heterodyne interferometer. The proposed method involves less complicated hardware equipment and algorithm, so it is sufficient for real-time and high-precision demodulation of the laser interference signals to realize vibration measurements in primary vibration calibration.