Laser based smart displacement sensor

The paper presents a displacement measuring system based on one optical emitter (laser diode), two optical sensors and on a smart structure used for sensor data processing. The system is designed around the PIC16F877 8-bit microcontroller that powers the sensors, acquires data from the sensors and performs the intelligent processing based on a neural algorithm. Communication between the smart sensor and a personal computer (PC) is possible using a RS232 interface. A practical approach concerning the laser diode behavior, the on-line correction of the tilt angle influences, and the microcontroller implementation of the neural processing algorithm are also presented.