A Range-Extension Method for an Indoor Standard Device for Large-Scale Length Measurement

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

ReviewApplSci7-2-23

 

Lines 33 to 40. References are missing. First reference appears in line 57.

 

Lines 51 to 55. Either provide references or eliminate. No editorializing.

 

Fig. 2 caption. Please rewrite.

 

Line 164. »Combined«? please explain.

 

Line 177. Measurement technique is not described. Likewise meaticulous alignment technique is not described.

 

Figure 6 is a photo with some annotations. Please replace.

 

Replace tables with graphs.

Explain why error is negatively biased.

 

Section 3.5 needss to be more rigorous with the reference provided for the initial Eq. 2.

 

Consider realistic reflection losses for 23 reflections, please.

 

Corner cube retroreflectors include their own errors because of the fabrication challenges. Please comment. With references.

 

How is figure 9 different from figure 5?

 

Conclusions are lacking clarity and specific achievement of the method. A sent4ence that makes no sense to this reader is highlighted.

 

Authors talk about calibration in Intro. There is no calibration system described.

 

Note: red-lining indicate poor expression or absence of supporting data. In all cases "it requires work".

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The ability to express concepts is very low.  Adjectives are formed using nouns where adjectives are available.  Strings of nouns are long. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “A Range-Extension Method for an Indoor Standard Device for Large-Scale Length Measurement” (ID: 2497196). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper.

Point 1: Lines 33 to 40. References are missing. First reference appears in line 57.

Response 1: Thanks for your valuable comments. I wrote the lines 33-40 of the text by myself, so there are no references.

Point 2: Lines 51 to 55. Either provide references or eliminate. No editorializing.

Response 2: Thanks for your advice. This part has been deleted from the original text.

Point 3: Fig. 2 caption. Please rewrite.

Response 3: Thanks for your advice. We have modified the line 147 of the text.

Point 4: Line 164. »Combined«? please explain.

Response 4: Your comments are very pertinent. This is our mistake. We have modified the lines 167-169 of the text. As an optical range-extension component in this paper, the hollow corner reflector is composed of a group of glass prisms with three perpendicular faces, as shown in Figure 3.

Point 5: Line 177. Measurement technique is not described. Likewise meaticulous alignment technique is not described.

Response 5: Thanks for your valuable advice. We set up a measuring system, which is mainly composed of an autocollimator, a reading display platform and a lifting mechanism. We have adjusted the corner reflector and measuring system to ensure levelness, recorded the readings of corner reflector, and took the maximum value of the measurement result as the measurement result. We have supplemented this part in lines 181 through 185 of the text.

Point 6: Figure 6 is a photo with some annotations. Please replace.

Response 6: Thank you very much for your advice. Sorry, we don’t fully understand what you mean. If the annotations in the figure are deleted, we will not be able to display our measuring system intuitively.

 

Point 7: Replace tables with graphs. Explain why error is negatively biased.

Response 7: Sorry, we don’t understand what you mean. Do you suggest that Table 1 will be replaced by a figure? The indication errors shown in Table 1 are plotted in Figure 7. The indication errors in Table 1 are both negative and positive, and not all of them are negative, which indicate the uncertainty of measurement results.

Point 8: Section 3.5 needss to be more rigorous with the reference provided for the initial Eq. 2.

 

Response 8: Thanks for your valuable comments. After three reflections of the light, the angle error was 3θ, and the resulting error was the measurement result of Eq. 2.

Point 9: Consider realistic reflection losses for 23 reflections, please.

Response 9: Thanks for your valuable comments. In theory, the range-extension experiment for measurement can reach 23 times, but in practice, many factors such as instrument debugging, placement location and environmental parameters of the laboratory need to be considered, so we cannot give a definite value.

Point 10: Corner cube retroreflectors include their own errors because of the fabrication challenges. Please comment. With references.

Response 10: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. The corner reflector needs to be polished and spliced in the manufacturing process, which will inevitably cause errors in that process. That’s why we need to measure it. Its angle error is θ。

Point 11: How is figure 9 different from figure 5?

Response 11: Your question is very good. The two laser interferometer measuring systems are completely identical, with the biggest difference being that the measured object has two parts. The first part is the optical patch panel, where the laser interferometer uses a three-sided corner prism, and the rangefinder uses a plane grayscale plate. The second part is the reflector, where the laser interferometer uses a three-sided corner prism, and the rangefinder uses a rectangular prism.

Point 12: Conclusions are lacking clarity and specific achievement of the method. A sent4ence that makes no sense to this reader is highlighted.

Response 12: Thanks for your advice. In this paper, a measuring platform was built to compare the measurements of laser interferometers in a range of 104m, which solved the problem that cannot be measured before. The biggest contribution of this study is to ensure that the laser interferometer can know its measurement error during use. In the past, when we used a laser interferometer, we were unable to determine its measurement error of the full range.

Point 13: Authors talk about calibration in Intro. There is no calibration system described.

Response 13: Your comments are very pertinent. The system we have built is a measuring system, which we usually describe as a calibration system. This is a misnomer.

 

Point 14: Note: red-lining indicate poor expression or absence of supporting data. In all cases "it requires work".

Response 14: Thank you for your advice. In this resubmitted manuscript, the modifying content has been added in Lines 11-20、30-38、167-169、173-176、179-181、203-205、251、287、305-308、315-316 and 332-333.Thanks for your suggestions again.

Finally, we appreciate again for your valuable comments and look forward to further contact with you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 

The authors present a method for extending the measurement range of an interferometric bench by doubling the optical path using hollow cube corner reflectors. The authors describe the experimental setup and measurement method and present the results of a performance evaluation. The article also includes an evaluation of the measurement uncertainty.

 

The article presents some problems:

 

·      The authors do not discuss the advantage of the proposed method over other similar approaches.

·      It is not clear to this reviewer whether the literature presented represents the state of the art for the specific research topic. Most of the cited journals are unknown to this reviewer.

·      Some references could not be found in Google Scholar, such as references 6, 7, and 8. In addition, references 6 and 7 have the same title.

·      The use of technical vocabulary is not always correct, e.g. "...are accurate to 1 um..." is line 30. And "...accuracy of 0.2"..." in line 77.

·      In Section 2.1, it is not clear why the criterion is that U should not be greater than half the MPE. Also, the authors do not specify the measurement system for which the MPE value is given.

·      Figures 3 and 4 are incomprehensible.

·      Figure 5 is not clear. Why is there a "moving platform" and a "mobile platform"?

·      The experiments that produced the results in Tables 3 and 4 are not described in detail and are therefore not reproducible. What is the reference for this evaluation? What is the nominal value? Only a single measurement was made? What about the repeatability of the measurements?

·      What do the authors mean by "...still met the calibration requirements of the laser interferometer..."? Ind line 237?

·      Equation 3 and 5. Approximately zero is not the same as equal to zero.

·      The symbol "x" should not be used for multiplication because it is the symbol for cross product.

 

This paper should be rejected for publication because it does not meet the minimum quality standards for scientific publication. I encourage the authors to conduct a thorough literature search in reputable journals such as "Measurement Science and Technology", "Measurement", and "Optics and Lasers in Engineering". If the authors can demonstrate that the research represents a real advance in the state of the art, resubmission after significant improvement may be considered.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “A Range-Extension Method for an Indoor Standard Device for Large-Scale Length Measurement” (ID: 2497196). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper.

Point 1: The authors do not discuss the advantage of the proposed method over other similar approaches.

Response 1: Sorry for our carelessness. In this resubmitted manuscript, the modifying content has been added in Line 67-73 and 78-79.Thanks for your suggestions again.

Point 2: It is not clear to this reviewer whether the literature presented represents the state of the art for the specific research topic. Most of the cited journals are unknown to this reviewer.

Response 2: Thanks for your advices. The research direction of our project is a niche topic, and no relevant studies have been found before or during the study. Some of the studies cited in the references are just a general direction, so it is impossible to find a reference with exactly the same research direction.

Point 3: Some references could not be found in Google Scholar, such as references 6, 7, and 8. In addition, references 6 and 7 have the same title.

Response 3: Thanks a lot for your advice. We will pay more attention to the retrieval of references. References 6 and 7 have similar titles, but they are not exactly the same. One is ‘The Research of the Feasibility to Establish Length Standard Inside a Laboratory’, and the other is ‘Research about the Feasibility to Establish Fictitious Length Standard inside a Laboratory’.

Point 4: The use of technical vocabulary is not always correct, e.g. "...are accurate to 1 um..." is line 30. And "...accuracy of 0.2"..." in line 77.

Response 4: Thanks for your advice. We have modified the lines 26 through 28 of the text.

Point 5: In Section 2.1, it is not clear why the criterion is that U should not be greater than half the MPE. Also, the authors do not specify the measurement system for which the MPE value is given.

Response 5: Your question is very good. If the measurement uncertainty U is less than half of the maximum permissible error, the quantity transmission of instruments will be meaningless. Since the measurement error between the tested sample and calibrator is too close, there is no transfer chain between them. This system is mainly used to calibrate the laser tracker, with a MPE of 15μm+6μm×L. This is supplemented in lines 91-95 of the text.

Point 6: Figures 3 and 4 are incomprehensible.

Response 6: In response to your question, we have made modifications. We have modified Figure 3, which is a simulation diagram of the hollow corner reflector we used. Figure 4 shows the experimental platform built in our laboratory, which mainly consists of a collimator and a motion mechanism. The system is used to measure the angle measurement errors of hollow corner reflectors.

Point 7： Figure 5 is not clear. Why is there a "moving platform" and a "mobile platform"?

Response 7: Your comments are very pertinent. This is a mistake in our description. In the figure, there is a mobile platform and a fixed platform formed by linear guide rails. We have modified it in Figures 5 and 9 respectively.

Point 8: The experiments that produced the results in Tables 3 and 4 are not described in detail and are therefore not reproducible. What is the reference for this evaluation? What is the nominal value? Only a single measurement was made? What about the repeatability of the measurements?

Response 8: We don’t fully understand what you mean. What kind of detailed description do you mean? Before measurement, we need to debug the optical path repeatedly. The experiment can be measured repeatedly, and the measured data can be used directly without any processing. The evaluation criterion is that the error value between the nominal value and the measured value of the laser interferometer is less than 0.5μm/m. Nominal value refers to the laser interferometer system fixed in our laboratory, which has a small measurement error. Many measurements were made in the laboratory, but due to the large amount of data, only one measurement result is selected in this research paper. The repeatability of the measurement is good, so there is no problem after multiple measurements.

Point 9: What do the authors mean by "...still met the calibration requirements of the laser interferometer..."? Ind line 237?

Response 9: Your question is very good. This is a key point. This is our key experiment to validate the range-extension measurements. In a measuring range of 50m, we measured 50 m directly and then adopted range-extension approach to measure. The indication error of the range-extension measurement method is less than 0.5μm/m. Therefore, we used the word “still”.

 

Point 10: Equation 3 and 5. Approximately zero is not the same as equal to zero.

Response 10: Thanks for your question. It was our mistake. We have modified lines 267 and 273 of the text.

 

Point 11: The symbol "x" should not be used for multiplication because it is the symbol for cross product.

Response 11: Thanks for your valuable advice. We have modified line 282 of the text.

Finally, we appreciate again for your valuable comments and look forward to further contact with you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The article deals with the actual problem of determining the error of length measurements by a laser interferometer when using it to monitor long distances.

The scientific novelty and practical significance of the article lies in the use of a new approach to expanding the range of a standard laser interferometer for measuring length in a room for large-scale measurements by using angular reflectors. The range extension method proposed by the authors opens up the possibility of estimating the errors of other metrological devices used for this purpose.

The material is presented sequentially. The relevance of the topic is formulated, a description of the methodological base of research is carried out, a mathematical apparatus for estimating the error of length measurements with a laser interferometer when using it to control long distances is formed, actual research results are presented, there are conclusions.

The article is recommended for publication and is of considerable interest from the standpoint of estimating the measurement error of a laser interferometer by expanding its measurement range.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “A Range-Extension Method for an Indoor Standard Device for Large-Scale Length Measurement” (ID: 2497196). Thanks for your recognition and affirmation of our work. We will continue to work hard and engage in related scientific research activities. Your affirmation is a strong driving force for our scientific research.

Finally, we appreciate again for your valuable comments and look forward to further contact with you.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors improved greatly their work. I recommend publication.

The authors improved greatly their work. I recommend publication.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Sorry, I don't see any significant improvement in the quality of the literature review and the experimental part. It is not clear to me why you think that a single measurement is sufficient to evaluate the performance of the system. I also don't understand how you define the "nominal value" in table 1 for lengths up to 104 m. It is certainly not a laser interferometer without range extension, since you have a 57 m long interferometer bench. The uncertainty budget is also inappropriate. Please refer to the ISO GUM on how to estimate measurement uncertainty.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx