High Speed Beam Steering Components for Lidar

Boulder Nonlinear Systems (BNS) proposes to pursue development of low size, weight, and power (SWaP) beam scanner technology for entry, descent and landing (EDL) or wind sensing Lidar NASA applications that can redirect the beam of light at 1 kHz (threshold) to 10 kHz (goal) framerates. The prototype scanner will steer to 8 spots over at least a 60o field of regard. BNS will employ their current liquid crystal polarization grating (LCPG) technology and ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) switches to meet scanner speed and resolution requirements. Advantages of applying BNS’ LCPG and switch component technology specific to the space-based Lidar applications will include accuracy, reliability, and improved SWaP as well as high rate (at least 1 kHz ) scanning. In addition, BNS will develop low SWaP dedicated drive electronics and environmentally test the scanner prototype which will be built in Phase II.