Distributed measurement system calibration method with automatic networking mechanism

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents a new method that balances accuracy and efficiency in the process of coordinate unification for distributed measurement systems. The method unifies the local coordinate systems of any two measuring units by installing a measuring point on the unit as a marker point and measuring the marker points between them in the working area, combined with the distance between the marker points. Moreover, it enables automatic networking of newly added or moved measurement units with the original measurement network, thereby further improving the efficiency of the dynamic measurements made using the system. The key factors affecting the accuracy of calibration achieved using this method were analysed via simulations. The results indicate that the accuracy of length measurement using the proposed methods is within 0.1 mm m−1 when the measurement units are distributed among the four corners of a rectangle with an area of 50 m2 or more. The experiments indicate that four measurement units calibrated using this method over an area of 35 m2 achieve an accuracy of within 0.2 mm m−1 and 0.1 mm standard deviations for length and three-dimensional coordinate measurements, respectively. Compared with traditional coordinate-unification methods, the proposed method simplifies the calibration process, improves the calibration efficiency by more than ten times, and significantly reduces the calibration time. It is universally applicable in the calibration of large-space distributed measurement systems.