GHz LIDAR IMaging Receiver (GLIMR)

Physical Sciences, Inc. will develop a Gigahertz LIDAR Imaging Receiver (GLIMR) to address the need for high resolution imagery from small mobile unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs).  The key innovation of the proposed approach is the use of a compressive sensing (CS) single pixel architecture.  This approach drastically reduces the required data rates, memory requirements and cost over competitive architectures, while still preserving range and intensity information.  GLIMR will be paired with a chirped wideband transmitter to produce a system delivering 5 cm range resolution at a 22 Hz frame rate (with paths identified for achieving 88 Hz frame rates).  Under the Phase I effort, PSI plans to adapt a pre-existing CS underwater LIDAR breadboard to achieve the requisite GHz bandwidth and sampling rates.  At the same time, range and intensity image reconstruction algorithms will be developed and optimized. This program will culminate with the generation of GLIMR prototype conceptual design to be developed under the Phase II effort.