Field Testing of Lunar Access and Navigation Device (LAND)

A laser radar system has been constructed. It is based on a commercial PC with digitizer, pulse delay instrument, National Instruments IO card and an optical head from a previous laser radar program. The laser radar was mounted on a gyro stabilized gimbal on the nose of a helicopter and flown in the Mojave Desert in September 2006. The collected data will be used to test algorithms for future precision lunar landers, which may be utilizing a laser radar as the primary landing sensor. This paper will describe the laser radar and PC based acquisition system used for the data collection, and provide an overview of the supporting test sensors and architecture. Preliminary data collected during the helicopter field testing will also be presented.