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 mm at 10 m and 1 cm at 100 m. 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 752×582 pixels. Camera shutter is controlled in steps of 100 ps. Camera delay is controlled in step 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 ∼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.