Effects of incident beam deviation from the center of a cat's eye retro-reflector on the measurement accuracy of a laser tracing system

Abstract This paper proposed a method of analyzing the measurement accuracy of a laser tracing system using the deviation of the incident beam from the center of a cat's eye retro-reflector. Based on the laser tracing system's measurement principle, a corresponding model is established to analyze the influence of the incident beam deviation from the center of cat's eye retro-reflector at the initial measurement position on the measurement accuracy. The measurement experiments verified that the influence was significant. When the deviation between the incident beam and the center of the cat's eye retro-reflector was -50 μm, the displacement measurement error was 3.5867 ± 0.0260 μm. When the deviation was 50 μm, the displacement measurement error reached 3.5939 ± 0.0189 μm. The relative displacement error between the cat's eye retro-reflector and the laser tracing system decreased the measurement system's accuracy. This study provides an important theoretical basis for evaluating and improving the accuracy and reliability of laser tracing measurement systems.