ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,320,632, issued on June 3.

"High resolution optical displacement measurement" was invented by Richard Kirby (Heber City, Utah), Fraser M. Smith (Salt Lake City) and Marc X. Olivier (Salt Lake City).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A compact displacement sensor comprises a light intensity pattern object, a micro-lens array and an imaging device including a light-intensity measuring surface. The micro-lens array is disposed between the light intensity pattern object and the imaging device such that each micro-lens focuses a corresponding sub-image making up a portion of the light-intensity pattern on the light-intensity measuring surface to cr...