Ultra-Miniature Lidar Scanner for Launch Range Data Collection

The most critical component in lidar is its laser scanner, which delivers pulsed or CW laser to target with desirable field of view (FOV). Most existing lidars use a rotating or oscillating mirror for scanning, resulting in several drawbacks. A lidar scanning technology was developed that could achieve very high scanning speed, with an ultra-miniature size and much lighter weight. This technology promises at least a 10x performance improvement in these areas over existing lidar scanners. Features of the proposed ultra-miniature lidar scanner include the ability to make the entire scanner <2 mm in diameter; very high scanning speed (e.g. 5 - 20 kHz, in contrast to several hundred Hz in existing scanners); structure design to meet stringent requirements on size, weight, power, and compactness for various applications; and the scanning speed and FOV can be altered for obtaining high image resolutions of targeted areas and for diversified uses.