Experimental Studies With A Coherent CO2 Laser Radar

This paper will describe measurements of target signatures performed with a CO2-laboratory laser radar of a homodyne doppler type. In the exneriments performed so far, we have studied receiver sensitivity, dependence on aperture and target signatures. Some studies of imaging and ranging out to 2 km have also been done. The measurements of target signatures refer to signal amplitude spectra, noise and rms signals. Based on these parameters the detection probabilities at various false alarm rates were calculated. Several types of targets were used. Sandblasted Al-plates were typical speckle targets and a corner cube was used to simulate glint targets. Military vehicles were used as well as objects of interest for obstacle avoiding like wires and frame work. Comnarison with theoretical results for speckle and glint targets was made.© (1982) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.