Smart laser sensor with measurement uncertainties beyond the diffraction limit

Optical measurement methods exhibit several potential advantages such as non-intrusiveness, high sensitivity, stability and selectivity. On the other hand the diffraction of light limits their measurement properties. At laser Doppler measurements the diffraction limit results in a complementarity relation between the velocity and the distance of moving scattering objects. In this contribution a novel laser Doppler sensor is presented providing velocity measurements beyond the diffraction limit. This smart laser sensor employs multi sensor data fusion, adaptive signal validation and digital frequency processing close to Cramér Rao lower bound. The benefits of the smart sensor will be demonstrated by simultaneous velocity and position measurements of complex and microfluidic flows, and high-speed rotating objects.