Study of the influence of the tetrahedral reflectors properties on autocollimating systems characteristics

Improving of the autocollimating systems characteristics is a line of optical engineering development. It is associated with study of initial errors and ways of their reduction. Study is devoted to the influence of tetrahedral reflectors properties (errors of dihedral angles) on the characteristics (accuracy et al) of autocollimating and autoreflection opticalelectronic systems for positioning control. The MATLAB mathematical model of tetrahedral reflector was developed for these purposes; results of simulation were compared with Zemax simulation. It is important to notice that the process of image formation is quite complex, it explains by superposition of six reflected and deflected beams. Because of the dihedral angle errors six compound images separate or overlap; that causes the redistribution of energy and image becomes complicated for processing. The aim is to study the influence of reflector properties on position of the image energy center, because it defines the measurement error. The influence of the tetrahedral reflector properties on system's characteristics is shown by example of shift control system based on autoreflection scheme.