Murray Dunn

Recent laser radar field-test results gathered with the rapid optical beam steering (ROBS) system

We present a summary of recent imagery and tracking measurements made with the ROBS laser radar system operating at White Sands Missile Range. The ROBS instrument utilizes a 0.5 meter aperture optical system, 3 - 5 micron imaging cameras, and a coherent CO2 laser radar for range and Doppler measurements. The optical system is based on a roving fovea design, which enables signal target tracking over large angles at high track update rate, and rapid retargeting between multiple targets. Results of several field measurements are presented.

Missile and aircraft field test data acquired with the rapid optical beam steering (ROBS) sensor system

The ROBS instrument has recently acquired unique imagery of a missile intercepting an airborne drone target. We present a summary of that mission. We also present imagery of three airborne targets collected while the ROBS instrument simultaneously tracked all three aircraft. The recent test data highlights the capability of the ROBS instrument for autonomous acquisition, tracking, and imaging of multiple targets under field test conditions. We also describe improvements to the optical system currently underway.

Engineering an agile beam director for laser radar

Beam agility for large aperture optical systems has proven to be a challenging engineering problem. This paper describes optical engineering issues of an agile, 1/2 meter aperture, 30 degree(s) field of regard telescope. Key system tradeoffs considered in the optical design are discussed.

Portable rapid optical-beam-steering ladar system

The properties of a pseudodeep hologram are studied. This new term refers here to an inclined thin hologram on which a one-dimensional line object is recorded by a sagittal system of beams. In this case the reconstructed image is read out only within the line corresponding to the object. It is shown that, similar to deep 3-D hologram, the pseudodeep hologram has high angular and spectral selectivity. A simple graphic method for the construction of the images restored by the pseudodeep hologram is presented. A reference-free hologram has been recorded with the help of such a system. When reading out such a hologram for a part of the object recorded on it, the associative image of the object as a whole was reconstructed. The possibilities of using the pseudodeep hologram was performing different operations are considered, including heteroassociative readout of information by the keys associated with it, recognition of pages of information by the keys associated with it, recognition of pages of information when illuminating the hologram by the objective wave, and multiple recording of information in the same region of the photographic material. In conclusion, the associative memory scheme in which the information pages are recorded on separate stripes of the pseudodeep hologram with the use of different reference sources as the keys associated with these pages has been considered. The retrieval of the pages is performed by illuminating the entire surface of the hologram with one of the reference sources

Monolithic Beam Steering For Large Aperture Laser Radar

An agile, lightweight, and diffraction-limited beam director has been developed for a proposed space based 10.6μ laser radar. The system is diffraction limited through its 30° field of regard. Preliminary tests on the 0.5 meter development device suggest that diffraction-limited optical performance and pointing accuracy can be maintained at repointing rates of 50 per second.