PURPOSE: To perform the alignment of an optical axis in the direction of a reference optical axis readily and accurately in a shout time by driving and controlling an automatic stage for a light emitting element or an optical element so that the brightness of the image of a light beam becomes maximum or the magnitude of size of the image becomes minimum.
CONSTITUTION: This apparatus is composed of an automatic light emitting element stage 1, an automatic optical-element stage 3, a TV camera 7, an image processing device 9 and a microcomputer 10 as a control means. The stage 1 has a light emitting element A. The stage 2 holds an optical element B so as to face the light emitting element A. The camera 7is fixed at a position where the image of the light beam passing the optical element B can be picked up and the camera agrees with a reference optical axis. The image processing part 9 sends the image data with regard to the brightness or the size of the image of the light beam into the computer 10 based on the output of the camera 7. The computer 10 drives and controls one or both of the stages 1 and 2 so that the brightness of the image of the light beam becomes maximum or the size becomes minimum.
GOTO HIROSHI
ITO YOSHINORI
