Autonomous Alignment Advancements for Eye-Safe Coherent Lidar

In this Phase II effort we propose to advance the development of autonomous alignment technology allowing improved performance and reliability from coherent lidar systems and demonstrate the technologies in a working coherent lidar system. Eye-safe coherent lidar technology holds great promise of meeting NASA's demanding remote 3D space winds goal near term. Highly autonomous, long-range coherent lidar systems may however suffer significant signal loss due to environment-induced component misalignment, as well as varying receiver lag-angle alignment errors in space-based platform applications. Although such systems can be engineered with the required alignment stability, the overall size, mass, and cost to produce coherent lidar systems will benefit from incorporating technology into the design that allows alignment to be optimized automatically while the system is in the field. Autonomous space- and air-borne lidar systems will especially benefit, where maintaining peak performance is critical without regular human intervention. Auto-alignment technologies will result in lower-cost lidar sensors with greater autonomy and less-exotic opto-mechanics, spurring strong commercial potential due to the rapid introduction of lidar systems into the commercial marketplace for various applications. The technology aimed at maintaining laser and lidar alignment also has potential to correct for receiver lag angle in fast-scanning long-range lidar systems, which will facilitate faster scan rates, larger apertures, and greater area coverage rate capability. Beyond Photonics has a strong interest in solving these technological problems for relevant ground-based, airborne, and space-based unattended lidar systems. This Phase II effort will further mature auto-alignment designs exhibiting a high level of synergy between NASA's and other commercial vendors’ requirements for laser auto-alignment, transmit/receive transceiver auto-alignment, and receiver lag angle compensation.