Displacement Measurement Using a Two-Probe Implementation of Microwave Interferometry

This paper presents a two-probe implementation of microwave interferometry for displacement measurement at an unknown reflection coefficient. Theoretically, the proposed technique gives the exact value of the displacement for reflection coefficients (at the location of the probes) no greater r than 1/√2 and in the general case determines it to a worst-case accuracy of about 4.4% of the operating wavelength. Its experimental verification has demonstrated reasonable measurement accuracy for displacements several times as great as the operating wavelength (in real-time measurements at a free-space wavelength of 3 cm for a peak-to peak vibration amplitude of 15 cm, the maximum error in the determination of the instantaneous relative displacement and the peak-to-peak amplitude was about 3 mm and about 1 mm, respectively).