Eye-safe diode laser Doppler lidar with a MEMS beam-scanner

We present a novel Doppler lidar that employs a cw diode laser operating at 1.5 μm and a micro-electro-mechanical-system scanning mirror (MEMS-SM). In this work, two functionalities of the lidar system are demonstrated. Firstly, we describe the capability to effectively steer the lidar probe beam to multiple optical transceivers along separate lines-ofsight.

The beam steering functionality is demonstrated using four lines-ofsight – each at an angle of 18° with respect to their symmetry axis. Secondly, we demonstrate the ability to spatially dither the beam focus to reduce the mean irradiance at the probing distance (R = 60 m) of each lineof-sight – relevant for meeting eye-safety requirements.

The switching time of the MEMS-SM is measured to be in the order of a few milliseconds. Time-shared (0.25 s per line-of-sight) radial wind speed measurements at 50 Hz data rate are experimentally demonstrated. Spatial dithering of the beam focus is also implemented using a spiral scan trajectory resulting in a 16 dB reduction of beam focus mean irradiance.