The invention is a system and method for heliostat mirror control. Here, each heliostat mirror generates a low intensity signal beam, directed at an angle off from the heliostat mirror's high intensity and sensor blinding main beam of reflected solar energy. The low intensity signal beams may be created by reflecting a small portion of the incident solar light at an angle from the main beam, by reflected artificial light, or from lasers shinning onto mirrors from known locations. The signal beams are detected by optical sensors mounted way from the main heliostat receiver focus, and can be used in a closed loop control system to efficiently ensure that individual heliostat mirrors in a heliostat array accurately track sunlight and direct the sunlight to a central receiver. Because heliostat mirrors need not be taken off sun for positioning, the system allows heliostat arrays to be run at high efficiency.

An optical sensor includes at least two optical sensing pixels and at least two different grating elements. These grating elements are disposed above these optical sensing pixels correspondingly.

A method and system of analyzing health of a solar tracker, including confirming solar tracker is in a starting position, driving solar tracker through a range of angles, collecting data regarding performance of solar tracker, analyzing the collected data, and presenting one or more aspects of the collected data on a user interface indicating the health of the solar tracker.

Systems, methods, and devices for fluid conduit inspection using absolute velocity of a sensor device are provided. The method includes: receiving sensor data collected by a sensor device during a measurement run from an interior of the fluid conduit while traveling along a length of the fluid conduit, the sensor device including a first magnetometer and a second magnetometer each having a fixed position in the sensor device, the fixed positions defining a separation distance between the first magnetometer and second magnetometer, the sensor data including magnetic flux data comprising first magnetic flux data collected by the first magnetometer and second magnetic flux data collected by the second magnetometer; determining a time delay between when a magnetic signal is present in the first magnetic flux data and when the magnetic signal is present in the second magnetic flux data; determining an absolute velocity of the sensor device.

A method for calibrating a value of sampling precision of an optical sensor for tracking includes: reading a precision variance and a setting precision value from a memory device; measuring the sampling precision of the optical sensor under a normal mode to generate an actually measured precision value; calculating a normalized value that is proportional to the actually measured precision value according to the precision variance, the actually measured precision value, and the setting precision value; and, calibrating the actually measured precision value by using the normalized value.

Systems, methods, and apparatus are disclosed for determining bore sight error. An apparatus may include an optical lens and a collimated light source configured to emit a beam of collimated light having a first wavelength, where the beam of collimated light passes through the optical lens and parallel to an optical axis of the optical lens. The apparatus may further include a position sensitive detector configured to receive the beam emitted by the collimated light source, and identify a first position of the beam relative to the position sensitive detector. The apparatus may also include a processing device configured to generate a bore sight error metric based, at least in part, on the first position identified by the position sensitive detector. The bore sight error metric characterizes a difference between an actual position of a target object and a perceived position viewed by the optical lens.

Systems, methods, and devices for fluid conduit inspection using absolute velocity of a sensor device are provided. The method includes: receiving sensor data collected by a sensor device during a measurement run from an interior of the fluid conduit while traveling along a length of the fluid conduit, the sensor device including a first magnetometer and a second magnetometer each having a fixed position in the sensor device, the fixed positions defining a separation distance between the first magnetometer and second magnetometer, the sensor data including magnetic flux data comprising first magnetic flux data collected by the first magnetometer and second magnetic flux data collected by the second magnetometer; determining a time delay between when a magnetic signal is present in the first magnetic flux data and when the magnetic signal is present in the second magnetic flux data; determining an absolute velocity of the sensor device.

An optical test apparatus includes a three-dimensional dome, light sources and a control unit. The three-dimensional dome covers a field of view of an image acquisition device. The image acquisition device is a test target device. The light sources are dispersedly arranged on the three-dimensional dome and generate a predetermined image on the three-dimensional dome. The first control unit controls the light sources.

A device includes a substrate is substantially transparent and includes a contact surface and an interface surface. The interface surface includes a plurality of electrical contacts. The device further includes a semiconductor die, which includes a plurality of connections, a first photo detector and a second photo detector. Each of the plurality of connections includes a connection bump formed thereon to couple to the plurality of electrical contacts of the interface surface of the substrate. The plurality of connections positioned relative to the first and second photo detectors to alter a directional response of at least one photo detector of the plurality of photo detectors.

The invention is a system and method for heliostat mirror control. Here, each heliostat mirror generates a low intensity signal beam, directed at an angle off from the heliostat mirror's high intensity and sensor blinding main beam of reflected solar energy. The low intensity signal beams may be created by reflecting a small portion of the incident solar light at an angle from the main beam, by reflected artificial light, or from lasers shinning onto mirrors from known locations. The signal beams are detected by optical sensors mounted way from the main heliostat receiver focus, and can be used in a closed loop control system to efficiently ensure that individual heliostat mirrors in a heliostat array accurately track sunlight and direct the sunlight to a central receiver. Because heliostat mirrors need not be taken off sun for positioning, the system allows heliostat arrays to be run at high efficiency.