METHOD FOR DETERMINING OPTICAL WAVE PROPAGATION TIME Russian patent published in 1995 - IPC

FIELD: laser data-measuring systems for finding distance to remote objects and for determining physical quantities influencing laser radiation propagation time. SUBSTANCE: method involves generation of optical waves at two frequencies, division of each wave into informative and reference ones, sending of informative waves of one frequency to object under analysis, alignment of waves reflected from object with informative waves of other frequency to obtain information pattern, conversion of information pattern intensity beats into differential-frequency voltage of optical waves, discrimination of differential-frequency reference voltage of optical waves upon measurement of phase difference of information and reference voltages, variation of phase difference of source optical waves until value exceeding initial phase difference by value multiple of phase meter sensitivity threshold is obtained, measurement of respectively changed phase difference of new optical wave frequency, and determination of optical wave propagation time by using data obtained. EFFECT: facilitated procedure, improved measurement accuracy. 1 dwg