High accuracy 3-D laser radar

We have developed a mono-static staring 3-D laser radar based on gated viewing with range accuracy below 1 m at 10 m and 1 cm at 100. We use a high sensitivity, fast, intensified CCD camera, and a Nd:Yag passively Q-switched 32.4 kHz pulsed green laser at 532 nm. The CCD has 752x582 pixels. Camera shutter is controlled in steps of 100 ps.

Camera delay is controlled in steps of 100 ps. Each laser pulse triggers the camera delay and shutter. A 3-D image is constructed from a sequence of 50-100 2-D reflectivity images, where each frame integrates about 700 laser pulses on the CCD. In 50 Hz video mode we record a 2-D sequence in a second and process a 3-D image in few seconds.

We compare 3-D images with a system performance model.