Computational Optical Metrology (Keynote)

Optical metrology is a key enabler for many areas of today’s industrial production and quality control. Production processes are getting more and more challenging e.g. due to product miniaturization, increase of precision, complexity and reliability and thus require fast, precise, non-destructive and contactless test and measurement processes, which can in many cases best be realized using optical approaches. The challenge for metrology systems arises from the combination of requirements such as i) dealing with geometrical complexity or uncooperative surfaces, ii) achieving high measurement speed and iii) low measurement uncertainty and as well iv) being robust e.g. with respect to mechanical vibrations. These four requirements are characterized in the talk by the “Tetrahedron of Optical Metrology”. In order to simultaneously cope with these challenges, we need to rethink the way we create optical metrology systems. In order to highlight the need for a synergetic treatment of the capture of optical information and its computational treatment to get an optimum result in terms of information content and efficiency, we introduce the term “Computational Optical Metrology”.