Volume 64, number 6 OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS 15 December 1987

REAL-TIME COMPARATIVE DIGITAL SPECKLE PATTERN INTERFEROMETRY

A.R. GANESAN, C. JOENATHAN and R.S. SIROHI

Engineering Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras 600 036. India

Received 29 July 1987; revised manuscript received 15September 1987

A comparative Digital Speckle Pattern Interferometric technique which allows compensation of fringes is presented in this
paper. The technique employs two identical objects, the master and the test, that are identically loaded to detect the difference in
their displacement profiles. The advantage of using DSPI is that real-time compensation of fringes can be achieved precisely and
defect detection becomes much easier. Theory and experimental results are presented.

1. Introduction in real-time. The technique uses two identical ob-

Electronic speckle pattern interferometry ( ESPI),
which is an outgrowth of holography and speckle in-
terferometry, is a technique by which speckle pat-
terns are processed electronically using analog
circuits. It has a variety of applications such as mea-
surements of small displacements, vibration analy-
sis, shape measurements, non-destructive testing
(NDT), etc. They have been covered in detail in
various articles [ l-3 1. The use of digital speckle pat-
tern interferometry (DSPI) [4-81, where the pro-
cessing of speckle patterns is done digitally on a
computer, to generate high contrast fringes by em-
ploying non-linear processing [ 61 has also been re-
ported. Inspite of getting such high contrast fringes
in DSPI, information about large displacements
lost for larger loadings due to low resolution. This
limits the ease with which it can be implemented
practical problems, especially for NDT where defect
detection becomes impossible as the object under test
is stressed heavily to bring about an anomaly in the
fringe pattern. A fringe compensation technique to
overcome this problem in speckle interferometry was
reported by us [ 91. Another comparative method us-
ing speckle interferometry to obtain the difference in
deflection profiles of two similar objects has also been
reported in an earlier paper [ lo].
In this paper, we report a modified compensation
technique suitable for any type of object using DSPI.
The advantage is that compensation can be effected
jects, a master and a test. Both the objects are loaded
identically, thereby the phase change brought in by
the loading of the test object are fully compensated
by the master. However, if the test object has a de-
fect, then the deflection profiles do not match at the
defect site and fringes are formed around that re-
gion. In fact, if the loading is not identical for both
the objects, then fringes corresponding to the differ-
ence in the deflection profiles are formed. This tech-
nique is especially suited for detecting small defects,
where a heavy loading might be required for the de-
fect to show up. Moreover if Leendertz [ 111 ar-
rangement is used, it is shown that fringe
compensation is not applicable to all types of object.
is
2. ESPUDSPI
for
ESPI is a technique by which the speckle patterns
are processed electronically using analog circuits,
whereas in DSPI the speckle patterns are processed
digitally on a host computer. The stored digital in-
formation after the required modifications is dis-
played on a TV monitor. Since the data is in a digital
form, we have more flexibility in handling the data.
The two images of the speckle patterns formed due
to the interference of the beams from the test and the
master objects are stored, one before and the other
after loading. The difference between the two images
is obtained pixel by pixel and subjected to non-linear

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Volume 64. number 6 OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS 15December 1987

processing such as level slicing and level windowing.
This results in high contrast fringes. The advantage
of DSPI is that measurements can be made even if
the average speckle size is less than the spatial res-
olution of the camera [ 61. This is because of the fact
that non-linear operations such as level-slicing and
level-windowing enhance the speckle contrast to yield
high contrast fringes.
The advantage of using DSPI for our purpose is
that (a) double-exposure as well as (b) real-time
compensation of fringes can be observed.
2.1. Double exposure method
process since the transfer of data is a relatively slow
process.
2.2. Real-time method
In this method, the speckle objects in their initial
state are stored in the odd pixels of the framestore
and only the even pixels are updated by a memory
update controller. These two frames are subtracted
and the difference is fed to the monitor at TV rate.
Level-slicing is achieved by redefining the output
look-up table.

In this method, the two frames of data i.e. speckle 3. Theory

patterns corresponding to the objects in their initial
state and the deformed state are stored on the hard The fringes observed in DSPUESPI are correlation
disc and are subsequently processed pixel by pixel fringes. These fringes depict the change in the de-
and fed to the TV monitor. This is a time consuming flection profiles of the two objects. Fig.1 shows the

MIRROR

T.V. CAMERA

RECURSIVE PATH

FRAME STORE

HOST COhlPLlTER

Fig. 1. Schematic of the experimental arrangement with the lay-out ofthe image processing system

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Volume 64. number 6 OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS 15December 1987

schematic arrangement to superpose the two objects
A and B at the image plane i.e. at the surface of the
vidicon. If I, and Z2are the resultant intensities at a
point on the face plate of the detector before and after
deformation respectively, then I, and Z2are given by
I, =a:+4 +2a,a* cos (4) ,
z,=a:+a:+2u,u, cos (@+6),
where a, and a2 are the amplitudes of the scattered
light at the image plane from the objects A and B re-
spectively, @is the random phase between the two
beams and 6 is the phase change due to deformation.
The output of the camera will have voltages pro-
portional to the intensities, as V, al, and V2aZz.
The difference between these two voltages is ex-
pressed as
dV=( VI - V2)a2u,uz [co@-cos (@+S)] ,
A Vrnaxaha2, when6=(2n+ 1)x,
AVmi”=O, when 6=2n~ .
In this case, 6 = S , - a2, where 6, and d2 are the in-
dividual phase changes introduced by the loading of
the objects A and B respectively and n is an integer.
With identical objects and identical loading, 6, =6,
and hence 6 = 0. This results in a dark fringe over the
entire object. If the test object has a defect, the de-
flection profiles do not match at that site and we see
fringes centred around the defect on the object. To
observe a weak defect, both objects are loaded heav-
ily and phase compensation provides a fringe-free
field except at the defect site.
The limitation of the modified Michelson’s inter-
ferometer arrangement is that the image of A is su-
perposed on the mirror image of B, and hence the
technique can be applied only to objects that have a
folding symmetry about the y-axis as shown in fig. 1.
This problem can be overcome by using the geom-
etry of fig. 2 in which both the mirror images of A
a?YdB are superposed so that it can be applied to any
type of identical objects.

n 1.
CAMERA
v.

IMAGING LENS

Fig. 2. Schematic of the modified optical arrangement for fringe compensation.

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Volume 64, number 6 OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS 15 December 1987

4. Experimental setup 5. Results and discussion

The schematic diagram of the experimental setup
is shown in fig. 2. A and B are two identical objects
(A is the master and B is the test). By careful ad-
justment the images of the objects are exactly su-
perposed on the faceplate of the vidicon. A 7mW He-
Ne Laser (1=0.6328 urn) was used for the experi-
ments. The framestore is a 512x 512x 8 bit mem-
ory. This means the electric video signal is sampled
at 5 12 x 5 12 pixels and the intensity at each pixel is
quantized to 256 gray levels. The input processor
serves as a memory update controller. Real-time dif-
ferencing is achieved by the recursive processor. A
PDP-1 l/23 computer incorporated with an Intellect
100 image processor was used in this study.
The objects of study were two circular perspex dia-
phragms of diameter 60 mm, clamped along the edges
and loaded at the centre. The observation area was
at the centre of about 40 mm diameter. The defects
in the objects were created by milling away a small
portion on the back surface of the diaphragm.
Different defective diaphragms were fabricated and
tested using DSPI. Fig. 3a shows the photograph of
the fringes for a diaphragm with a large defect. The
defect is about 60°& The out-of-plane displacement
fringes for such a diaphragm show a bit of eccen-
tricity, orienting towards the defect site. Figs. 3b, c,
d are the different stages of compensation attempted
by deforming the master. Initially the test object was
deformed to 15 urn at the centre. With compensa-
tion, fringes over only the defect site (fig. 3c) have
been obtained. Fig. 3d is the photograph of the fringes
obtained when the master was deformed little more
than the test object. Fig. 4a is the photograph of the
out-of-plane displacement fringes for a 20% defect in
the diaphragm which was loaded to 10 urn. The
fringes do not show any eccentricity nor can the de-
fect site be located. The diaphragm was again loaded
to 30 urn and then compensation was attempted by
loading the master. Fig. 4b and c shows the different
stages of compensation and in fig. 4c the defect site
appears as a bright spot in the otherwise zero fringe
field.

Fig. 3. Photographs of the sequence of fringe compensation for a test object with a 609b defect, (a) the test object was deformed to 6 Km,
(b,c,d) the master was deformed to I5 pm initially and the test object was loaded to 13 Frn, 15 pm and 17 pm respectively.

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Fig. 4. Photographs of compensated fringes for a test object with a 20% defect, (a) the test object was deformed to 10 pm, (b,c) the test
object was again loaded to 30 urn and the master was loaded to 38 pm and 40 urn respectively.
Usually, for location of the defect site the change
around the area of the defect should be at least a few
orders of wavelength. As loading the objects to 30 to
40 urn simultaneously to bring out an anomaly would
introduce decorrelation, preloading the objects to
about 60 to 80 urn would be better, especially in the
case of weak defects. Fig. 5 shows one such photo-
graph where the objects were pre-stressed to 60 pm.
They were further stressed to 30 urn and 28 urn be-
tween exposures. It is very essential that the deflec-
Fig. 5. Photograph of the fringes obtained when the master and
the test objects were pre-loaded to 60 pm and then loaded to 30
pm and 28 urn respectively.
15 December 1987
tion profiles of the images are exactly superposed.
Otherwise, a resultant fringe pattern due to the mis-
match of the two deflection profiles will be obtained
rather than full compensation.
6. Conclusion
A comparative technique which allows compen-
sation of fringes in real-time has been introduced in
DSPI. The advantage of this technique is that proper
superposition of the two images of the objects can be
done with ease. Moreover a modified arrangement
has been proposed for fringe compensation to in-
coporate any type of object. As the technique is real-
time, it will find applications as a tool for NDT in
industry.
Acknowledgement
The financial support from the Department of Sci-
ence and Technology (DST), is gratefully
acknowledged.
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