The present invention relates to an optical process with which the type, position, deformation, and vibrations of objects can be determined.
In the past, different techniques were required for determining characteristics of an object such as the type, position, deformation, and vibrations. In the present application, determining the "type" of object means to identify the object, or to classify the object by type.
The optical identification of objects, for example by means of bar codes, is useful only within limits due to their size, low information density (10 characters/cm), sensitivity to soiling, damage and vibrations.
The optical position detection process including image processing systems is very expensive, requires complicated and individualized software for each object and, due to the performance of image analysis, is too slow for some automatic applications. Moreover, this process can be used only for simple geometric structures and is sensitive to surface reflections.
Contactless optical determination of deformation, for example according to the Moire method or by means of holographic interferometry, is expensive and not very adaptable with respect to sensitivity, is sensitive to vibrations, and is sensitive to damage and obstruction of sensor.
The contactless determination of vibrations of objects according to prior art methods is very expensive and too slow for some automatic applications.