Construction of traceable absolute distances network for multilateration with a femtosecond pulse laser

The traceable absolute distances network with multiple global targets for multilateration is developed with a femtosecond pulse laser. It is aiming to enhance the ability and flexibility of the coordinate measurement, especially to monitor the positions of distributed stations in real time for some critical industrial environments. Here, multi-target absolute distances are determined by the temporal coherence method simultaneously with the pulse-to-pulse interferometer. Besides, the performance of the proposed system is evaluated in detail by comparing with a conventional interferometer. The experimental results indicate that the accuracy of distances measurement could all reach the sub-micron level and could be traceable to the length standard. Furthermore, a simple scheme of multilateration is presented based on the developed network. The coordinate of the initial point of multiple beams is measured by cooperation with a laser tracker. The results of coordinate measurement show that these methods have the potential for further industrial applications. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement