Covert Fiber-coupled Eye-safe Laser Rangefinder for Photonic Masts

A compact fiber-based low-power miniature laser rangefinder (LRF) will be developed and shown to provide superior ranging performance within the demanding size, weight, and power (SWAP) requirements of existing and planned photonics masts, such as found on Virginia- and SSGN-class submarines. The LRF includes a 6-ns pulsed 1-mJ miniature laser, a temperature-compensated avalanche photodiode (APD) photoreceiver with about 10 photons noise equivalent input (NEI), and a time-to-digital converter (TDC) with sub-20-ps time accuracy. The transmit and receive optics will be fiber-coupled, with consideration for the laser-pulse energy, and demonstrated to range to beyond 10 km, with 0.1 m resolution, working remotely from the optical system.