The Development of a Laser Focal Plane Array

This proposal describes an innovative and proprietary multiple detector focal plane assembly (FPA) designed to be used for high resolution 3 dimensional imaging (staring) underwater laser radar. This FPA design has the fallowing characteristics: - Can be used to determine the time-of-arrival of a laser pulse at each detector element in the array independent from the other detector elements in the array. - Depth resolution is better than 1/2 meter. - Very low noise and very high dynamic range, preliminary design has 12 bits dynamic range. - Preliminary design is for a 10 x 10 array but the number of detectors per array can definately be increased. - Very compact and low power. - All signals are fully digitized within the FPA. - Low cost in volume production. - Preliminary design has been modeled in PSPICE to confirm operating characteristics.