EYESAFE ACTIVE IMAGING OF HARD TARGETS: AN OVERVIEW OF TECHNIQUES UNDER INVESTIGATION BY NVESD

The U.S. Army is actively pursuing 3D active imaging techniques using laser sources emitting at 1.5 μm. This eyesafe short wave infrared (SWIR) waveband is advantageous due to both the improved eye safety and atmospheric propagation through obscurants. NVESD has several active programs in this area, which will be reviewed in this paper. These are: 1) single-pixel scanned imaging laser radar, 2) 2D gated SWIR imaging, and 3) 3D-flash laser radar. These systems are being evaluated for various targeting scenarios, including as potential payloads on unmanned air-vehicles, ground vehicles and other sensor suites. Applications include low-cost long-range target identification, identification of heavily obscured targets, obstacle avoidance, and high resolution imaging.