Improved accuracy of time-resolved micro-Particle Image Velocimetry using phase-correlation and confocal microscopy

Micro-Particle Image Velocimetry (μPIV) measurements often suffer from poor image quality because of volume illumination effects, out of focus particles, and low seeding densities. As a result, measurements are typically ensemble averaged in time to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the resulting cross correlations. To achieve reliable, time-accurate μPIV measurements we need to improve the SNR of the recorded images and/or the SNR treatment of the resulting cross correlations. In this paper, we improve image quality and cross correlation SNR by comparing the use of confocal microscopy with spectral filtering. Steady-state spatiotemporally resolved data from widefield and confocal μPIV experiments were used and cross correlations were performed using standard techniques and the Robust Phase Correlation (RPC) method that employs a PIV-optimized spectral filter on the cross-correlation planes. The accuracy improvements were assessed by comparison against the time-averaged ensemble cross correlation, which currently represents the most accurate and accepted approach for steady-state μPIV measurements. Results show 24.77 % erroneous vectors for two-pass standard cross correlation with widefield imaging, which was reduced to 9.08 % erroneous vectors when using the RPC and confocal imaging. Furthermore, a 59.2 % reduction of error referenced to the ensemble correlation was observed when using RPC with confocal imaging over baseline cases. Improvements seen for RPC and confocal cases result from synergistically improving the correlation signal-to-noise ratio, resulting in correlation planes with sharper primary peaks and lower background levels.