Abstract

An interpolation method is described for range measurements of high precision and altimetry using repeating intensity-modulated continuous wave (IM-CW) lidar waveforms, where the range is determined by means of a cross-correlation between the digital form of the transmitted signal and the digitized return signal collected by the lidar receiver. This method uses reordering of the array elements in the frequency domain to convert a repeating synthetic pulse signal to single highly interpolated pulse. The computation of this processing is marginally greater than the correlation itself, as it only involves reordering of the correlation in the frequency domain, which makes it possible to implement this in a real time application. It is shown through theoretical arguments and flight-testing that this is a viable method for high-speed interpolated range measurements. Standard deviation is 0.75 m over water with only 350 mw of transmitted power at 2600 m.

Super-resolution technique for CW lidar using Fourier transform reordering and Richardson–Lucy deconvolution

Joel F. Campbell, Bing Lin, Amin R. Nehrir, F. Wallace Harrison, and Michael D. Obland
Opt. Lett. 39(24) 6981-6984 (2014)

High-resolution random-modulation cw lidar

Xiao Ai, Richard Nock, John G. Rarity, and Naim Dahnoun
Appl. Opt. 50(22) 4478-4488 (2011)

Advanced sine wave modulation of continuous wave laser system for atmospheric CO₂ differential absorption measurements

Joel F. Campbell, Bing Lin, and Amin R. Nehrir
Appl. Opt. 53(5) 816-829 (2014)

Remote wind sensing with a CW diode laser lidar beyond the coherence regime

Qi Hu, Peter John Rodrigo, and Christian Pedersen
Opt. Lett. 39(16) 4875-4878 (2014)

Incoherent-light temporal stretching of high-speed intensity waveforms

Bo Li and José Azaña
Opt. Lett. 39(14) 4243-4246 (2014)