Existing non-contact three-axis angle-measurement methods are unsuitable for measuring the relative three-axis angles between the inner and outer ring frames of fifth-generation airborne optoelectronic gimbal platforms. Our previous study proposed a compact three-axis angle-measurement method based on an optical wedge for this application. However, the fixed-coefficient angle-solving model used in that method does not account for variations in the measurement distance L, which can produce distance-dependent nonlinear errors when axial displacement of the inner ring frame occurs. To address this limitation, the present study proposes a distance-adaptive method for three-axis angle measurements. An analytical measurement-distance model is established using ABCD ray-transfer-matrix theory, and L is incorporated into the fixed-coefficient angle-solving model. The fixed coefficients in the polynomial error-compensation model are thereby expressed as functions of L and updated according to the estimated measurement distance. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly improves the measurement accuracy under varying-distance conditions. Taking the measurement-distance condition with the largest error, L = −2 mm, as an example, the RMS values of the measurement errors for the pitch, yaw, and roll angles are reduced from 13.0″, 8.4″, and 31.1″ to 5.6″, 3.8″, and 18.6″, respectively.
Wang et al. (Sun,) studied this question.