Accuracy improvement for linear array photocell sensor

Abstract Linear array photocell sensor is widely used in pose measurement of construction machinery. Usually, we use a laser to provide a measurement reference and one or several sensors mounted on the machinery for laser receiving. The pose of the machinery is obtained by locating the laser spot incident on the sensor. In this paper, a laser spot center location algorithm is proposed, which significantly improves the positioning accuracy. First the region of the laser spot is roughly determined by window scanning method. Then the sensor output component corresponding to stray light is eliminated through frequency domain filtering. Finally, the geometric center of the spot is calculated accurately by analyzing the energy center. An experimental platform is designed to verify the measurement accuracy of the proposed algorithm. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is with higher measurement accuracy compared with the traditional algorithms.