Wideband dual-frequency lidar-radar for high-resolution ranging, profilometry, and Doppler measurement

We report on a wideband lidar-radar architecture in which range resolution is independent of pulse duration thanks to the use of a widely tunable intensity-modulated laser combined with a radar-like signal processing. As a source, we use a dual-frequency laser which provides a 100 % depth intensity modulated beam at GHz frequencies. The frequency is electrically adjustable over 1 GHz and is stabilized with a fiber-loop based frequency discriminator. With this setup, we generated a 1 GHz bandwidth stepped-frequency waveform. A range resolution of 22 cm is demonstrated.

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