Errors of Electro-Optical Distance Meters

Abstract

All electro-optical distance meters suffer from a large number of usually very small instrumental errors, irrespective of the use of the pulse measurement or phase measurement principle. The errors may be inherent to the electrical and optical design and/or caused by manufacturing and component tolerances. The magnitude of these errors is kept small by the manufacturers and usually accounted for in the accuracy specifications of instruments. In view of the fact that a small number of errors must be calibrated by the user of EDM instruments and that errors occasionally exceed the specified accuracy and may change with time, the user must be aware of the main error pattern of instruments.