Pulse shifted array
AssigneeMbda UK Limited
InventorsMartyn R Jennings, Lee D Miller
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A laser-radar receiver comprising an array of optical fibers, wherein the opposite ends of the optical fibers are connected to at least one electromagnetic radiation detector, each of the optical fibers having differing physical characteristics which result in known delays in the transmission time of pulsed electromagnetic radiation.
Claims20
A laser-radar receiver comprising at least one may comprised of the first ends of a plurality of optical fibres, wherein the corresponding opposite ends of said optical fibres of the array are connected to the same electromagnetic radiation detector means, each of said optical fibres having differing physical characteristics which result in known and differing delays in the transmission time of pulsed electromagnetic radiation incident on said first ends of said optical fibres to the electromagnetic detector means, wherein each of said optical fibres has at least two different paths for the electromagnetic radiation, a splitter being provided for splitting each pulse of electromagnetic radiation between each of the different paths, the paths being recombined by a recombiner prior to reaching the detector, the recombiner and the splitter being separate optical devices such that the electromagnetic radiation is not permitted to feedback, and whereby each of said at least two paths associated with an optical fibre of the array has a different physical characteristic from the other of said at least two pats associated with said optical fibre of the array wherein the time taken for a pulse of radiation to travel along said one of the paths is different from the time taken for a pulse of radiation to travel along said other of the paths.
A laser-radar receiver having a fibre-optic array incorporating the input ends of a plurality of optical fibres which are connected to a single electromagnetic radiation detector means, each of said optical fibres having differing physical characteristics from each other which result in known differing delays in the transmission time of a pulse of electromagnetic radiation from the input ends of said optical fibres to the detector means, whereby each of said optical fibres provides a first path for transmitting the pulse to the detector means, and each of said optical fibres is connected to a respective auxiliary optical fibre which provides a second path for transmitting the pulse to the detector means with a different time delay, a splitter being provided for each optical fibre for splitting each pulse of electromagnetic radiation between the optical fibre and its auxiliary optical fibre, and a reconibiner being provided for each optical fibre for recombining the optical fibre and its auxiliary optical fibre, the splitter and the recombiner being separate optical devices such that the electromagnetic radiation is not permitted to feedback into an optical fibre.
A method of laser-radar Imaging comprising:
- using an optical fibre array to receive a pulse of electromagnetic radiation, each of the optical fibres of the array having differing physical characteristics which result in known and differing delays in the transmission time of the pulse of electromagnetic radiation along the optical fibres of the array,
- transmitting the pulse of electromagnetic radiation through the optical fibres of the array to a single electromagnetic radiation detector, including the steps of:
- providing each of the optical fibres of the array with an associated auxiliary optical fibre, each of the auxiliary optical fibres having differing physical characteristics from the other auxiliary optical fibres which result in known and differing delays in the transmission time of a pulse of electromagnetic radiation along the auxiliary optical fibres,
- splitting the pulse between the optical fibre and its auxiliary optical fibre,
- recombining the optical fibre and its auxiliary optical fibre before the detector, and ensuring that elecomagnetic radiation is not permitted to feedback during the splitting and recombining steps so that the detector receives two pulses from each optical fibre of the array, the time between the two pulses being dependent on the physical characteristics of the auxiliary optical fibre, and
- using the transmission delay between the said two pulses received from an optical fibre to identify the optical fibre of the array tat transmitted those two pulses to the detector.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.