Abstract
We report the design and implementation of a high-speed, automated laser radar (ladar) system with sensitivity enhanced by a polarimetric imaging technique. This ladar is able to analyze the Stokes vector of the reflected light from a target at video-rate. With a polarization state generator and a polarization state analyzer, the system is capable of performing a complete Mueller matrix imaging of the scene under observation. This polarization- sensitive ladar (pladar) is applied to various scenes and found to yield the ability to detect information that is indiscernible to a conventional, intensity-based ladar.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 073201 |
Journal | Optical Engineering |
Volume | 51 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 2012 |
Funding
This work is supported in part by AFOSR grants FA9550-06-1-0466 and FA9550-10-1-0228, NASA grant NNX09AU90A, and NSF Crest grant 0630388. One of the authors, Renu Tripathi, acknowledges support from National Science Foundation NSF-CREST (grant 0630388), and NASA URC-5 (grant NNX09AU90A).
Keywords
- Laser radar
- Polarization imaging
- Stokesmetry
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
- General Engineering