Improvement of a 1319 nm laser radar using

non-identical telescopes

Patrick Shealey, Darry Saunders,

Erica Pinkney, Demetrus Rorie

April 6, 2004

Abstract:
Measuring ice sheet surface elevation and vegetation canopy height by lidars carried by satellites is getting more practice. Those lidars use short duration and high peak power transmit pulses to achieve the necessary resolution and sensitivity. The high peak power operation results in limited lidar lifetime and a low pulse repetition frequency (PRF) which provides insufficient spatial samples along the satellite track. To overcome those disadvantages of high peak systems the search group in the university of Kansas has developed a low peak power laser radar using modern RF techniques and fiber-optic technologies developed in support of the communication industrial. [1] Also receiver sensitivity below –100 dBm with transmit pulses with 40 ms duration , 260 MHz bandwidth and a 4 kHz PRF were reported. However the two-stage down-conversion receiver with envelope detection associating with telescope-to-optical fiber coupling still have room to be improved and in my article we will discuss one possible way to reduce insertion losses in coupling.