Three-degree-of-freedom autocollimation angle measurement method based on crosshair displacement and rotation

The classic autocollimation method manages to measure the two-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) angles, namely pitch and yaw, but fails to measure the roll angle. This paper proposes an autocollimation method that enables the simultaneous measurement of 3-DOF angles in which a carefully designed cooperated reflector (CR) splits the collimated beam into two returning beams parallel to the optical axis. The 3-DOF angles of the CR can be obtained by detecting the displacement and rotation of the crosshair images received by two photodetectors. The measurement principle is dissected, and the experimental results reveal that the constructed system achieves an accuracy of better than ±1.54 arcsec in the range of ±1000 arcsec. In addition, it is demonstrated that the system can be applied to the 3-DOF angle measurement of long-distance targets.