Patent ID: 7201519

Claim:
An apparatus for aligning an optical input port having a face with respect to an optical output port having a face, the apparatus comprising: an X-Y linear table for moving one of the optical input port and optical output port with respect to the optical output port and optical input port, respectively; an optical power meter for obtaining measures of alignment quality of the optical input port to the optical output port; a memory for storing the measures of alignment quality and relative positions of the optical input port to the optical output port at which the respective measure of alignment quality are obtained; and a controller for: directing movement of the X-Y linear table according to a predetermined scan pattern, points in the predetermined scan pattern corresponding to the respective relative position, determining whether a measure of alignment quality for a current point in the predetermined scan pattern is stored in the memory, using the stored measure of alignment quality stored in memory when it is determined that the measure of alignment quality for the current point is stored and otherwise obtaining the measure of alignment quality for the current point from the optical power meter, comparing respective measures of alignment quality obtained from the optical power meter or from the memory at different relative positions of the optical input port and the optical output port, initializing and changing a scan resolution setting without changing the scan pattern, and designating and updating the respective relative positions of the optical input port and optical output port according to the scan resolution setting and comparison of the measures of alignment quality.