How does the autoalignment piezoactuator controller align a fiber to a device?
The elegant analog system used by the autoalignment piezoactuator controller employs a principle previously used by radar engineers to track their targets. By rotating the cone of light emitted from a source fiber, the light entering the target device is modulated at the frequency of rotation. This modulation is recovered by the autoalignment piezoactuator controller’s detectors and compared to the phase of the signal used to rotate the source fiber. This information is decoded into vertical and horizontal components of displacement and used to close the loop on the source fiber. Consequently, this process brings the fiber and device into precise alignment. Displacement errors are decoded in a few cycles of modulation, typically several milliseconds; consequently, alignment is achieved in less than a second.
