Measurement of gear tooth profiles using incoherent line structured light

Optical measurement methods are being increasingly used in the profile measurement field, but optical high-precision measurements of gear tooth profiles have not been achieved. Therefore, a high-precision profile measurement method that uses incoherent line structured light was proposed and a corresponding measurement system was developed in this paper. To calibrate the accuracy of this system, profile measurement experiments using roughness comparison specimens were conducted. Finally, the tooth profile measurement experiments using an involute master were performed. The results indicated that the incoherent line structured light method was less affected by speckle noise and had higher measurement resolution than the line laser method. The tooth profile error for the involute master measured by the incoherent line structured light method was ±2.2 μm. This study provides a new method for the industrial application of optical high-precision measurement of gear tooth profiles.