Three Dimensional Ladar Focal Plane Array Development at Rockwell Scientific: An Update

We have developed a three-dimensional (3D) imaging ladar focal plane array (FPA) for military and commercial applications. The FPA provides snap-shot, direct detection, high-resolution range and range-sampled intensity imaging capability on a single chip. The FPA is made of a 64x64 element, 100-μm pixel pitch detector array that is directly bump bonded to a matched CMOS based silicon readout integrated circuit (ROIC) with parallel ladar signal processing at each pixel. A room temperature, SWIR InGaAs detector variant for imaging near 1.5-μm wavelengths and a cooled MWIR HgCdTe detector variant for imaging near 3-μm to 5-μm wavelengths have been fabricated. We have built a prototype SWIR FPA, integrated it to a compact, transportable SWIR flash ladar transceiver, and collected initial range images outdoors. We present the measured performances of the detector, the readout, and the image data collected with the focal plane array.