Fringe chasing by three-point spatial phase shifting for discrimination of the motion direction in the long-range homodyne laser Doppler vibrometry

In this work, a three-point spatial phase shifting (SPS) method is implemented for chasing of the moving interference fringes in the homodyne laser Doppler vibrometry (HoLDV). By the use of SPS method, we remove disability of the HoLDV in the discrimination of the motion direction for long-range displacements. From the phase increments histogram, phase unwrapping tolerance value is selected, and adequacy of the data acquisition rate and required bandwidth limit are determined. Also in this paper, a detailed investigation on the effect of detectors positioning errors and influence of the Gaussian profile of the interfering beams on the measurements are presented. Performance of the method is verified by measuring a given harmonic vibration produced by a loudspeaker. Also, by the proposed method, vibration of mounting system of a disk laser gain medium is characterized.