Solid State LIDAR Chip (SSLC)

The use of a single chip, integrated LIDAR receiver with a 1024 channel linear array allows current pushbroom style streak tube LIDAR's to be retrofitted with a solid state receiver, eliminating the high cost tubes and high voltage power supplies needed. Added benefits of using the single chip receiver are that the receive gain can be chirped to give a near constant (reflectivity x area) product vs. range, increasing detection sensitivity for a given digitization accuracy. The addition of a phase receiver developed at Systems & Processes Engineering Corporation (SPEC) and proven in numerous LIDAR programs at SPEC allows upgrading the LIDAR output to not only provide amplitude of reflection vs. range gate, but also the power centroid of the reflected power in the range gate to within 1/8 inch. This allows accurate surface profiling of hard objects, making discrimination of mines more certain. This circuit also allows high range accuracy at low signal to noise levels.