Flash ladar system
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army
InventorJay Land
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A flash ladar system has a laser provided with beam focusing optics for directing a laser fan beam pulse to a scanning element that in turn directs the laser fan beam to a vertical region of space. Light reflected from an object in the vertical region of space is directed by a reflecting element to a sensor provided with a column of photosensitive pixels that connects to a charge storage matrix of non-photosensitive pixels. After an integration period electrical charges are shifted from the photosensitive region to an adjacent column in the charge storage region. The process of integrate and shift is repeated for multiple integration periods until the charge storage region is filled with charges whereupon a serial shift register removes the information to be processed by a data processor.
Claims19
A flash ladar system, comprising:
- a laser for generating a fan-beam pulse;
- optical means for directing the fan beam pulse;
- scanning means for receiving the fan-beam pulse from said optical means and directing the fan-beam pulse toward a calibrated vertical strip of space;
- a sensor having a photosensitive region oriented with a singular axis;
- reflecting means for reflecting light, the reflected light resulting from the fan-beam pulse striking an object in the calibrated vertical strip of space, said sensor receiving the reflected light from said reflecting means.
A flash ladar system, comprising:
- a laser;
- an optical arrangement for directing a beam generated by said laser in a desired direction;
- a scanner having a side for directing the beam received from the optical arrangement toward an object to be scanned;
- a reflector that comprises a second side of said scanner for receiving light generated as a result of the beam striking the object and then reflecting the light;
- a sensor that receives the light reflected by said reflector;
- said sensor having a single column of photosensitive pixels, said sensor having a charge storage array having a plurality of charge storage pixels arranged in a matrix, each photosensitive pixel of said single column of pixels being connected to a corresponding row of said charge storage array;
- imaging optics for directing the light reflected by said reflector to said sensor;
- a rotatable housing including means for rotating, said rotatable housing containing said scanner, said imaging optics and said sensor, said scanner, said imaging optics and said sensor rotating with said rotatable housing;
- and
- fiber optic connecting means for connecting said sensor to a data processor.
A flash ladar system, comprising:
- a laser;
- an optical arrangement for directing a beam from said laser in a desired direction;
- a scanner for receiving the beam from said optical arrangement and directing the beam toward an object to be scanned;
- a reflector for receiving the light generated as a result of the beam striking the object and then reflecting the received light as a reflected light stream;
- a rotatable housing having means for rotating, said scanner and said reflector being affixed to said rotatable housing and rotating therewith;
- splitting means for splitting the reflected light stream received from said reflector into a first stream and a second stream;
- a first sensor for receiving the first stream from the splitting means and a second sensor for receiving the second stream from the splitting means;
- and
- data processing means connecting to said first and second sensors.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.