Contactless Distance Measurement

Contactless distance measurement is becoming more and more important in analysing vibration, alignment, position or bending. This article explains the most popular measurement methods and discusses their applicability.Contactless distance measurement finds many practical applications: if the motion of an object would be damped or otherwise affected by coupled mass or the force exerted by a measurement device; when sensitive surfaces must not be damaged; or when rapid motion must be tracked.Such testing and measurement tasks are commonplace in research and development, automation, quality control and machine control applications. For all these tasks a large number of companies offer numerous models of sensor employing various measurement principles. Three methods of contactless distance measurement have become dominant in the last few years: the eddy current principle, the capacitive principle and the optical triangulation principle.