Optical Localization and Tracking Method of a Mobile Micro-Conveyor Over a Smart Surface

In this paper, a remote optical method to localize and track a mobile micro-conveyor is presented. The principle of the proposed method consists of detecting a laser beam that is reflected by the micro-conveyor and analyzing this optically received signal to obtain the corresponding positions of the micro-conveyor. The main elements of the system are a corner cube retroreflector, a steering mirror, and a beam splitter. The corner cube retroreflector is placed onto the micro-conveyor in order to allow the optical signal to be reflected back in its incident direction. The steering mirror aids in scanning the surface with the laser. The beam splitter is used to guide the reflected laser beam towards a quadrant photodiode, which interprets the optical signal to corresponding output voltages. In this work, a micro-conveyor is successfully localized and tracked with a resolution better than 55 μm, over a surface of 100 mm×100 mm, with a displacement velocity of 30mm/s.