Raytheon Company

Michael Gubala

Robert A Rosen

Kapriel V Krikorian

A LADAR system for coherently imaging a target within a volume has a modulated laser transmitter at a frequency and a receiver. The receiver has a plurality of lenses, each with its own detector. Each detector is supplied by a centrally located local oscillator tuned to the frequency. The paths from the local oscillator to each detector, as well as the delay within each lens/detector combination are measured during a calibration. A calibrating reflector reflects a test signal during the calibration at many frequencies, temperatures and accelerations. Measurements of paths and delays obtained during the calibration are stored, and used to phase compensate subsequent target reflections for coherent processing.

Rapid scan LADAR 3D imaging with compact digital beam formation

A hovering helicopter has a radar transmitter/receiver for transmitting radar pulses for illuminating a target for SAR imaging, and rotor blades for generating lift. Radar reflectors are on the rotor blades. The radar reflectors are oriented to reflect the radar pulses from the transmitter to the target as the rotor blades rotate. The radar pulses reflected by the moving reflector from the transmitter are timed to generate the synthetic aperture image using radar returns from the target. The receiver also receives blade returns directly reflected from the moving reflectors attached to the lift rotor blades. The receiver analyzes the blade returns to extract motion details of the reflectors and uses the motion details for motion compensation of target returns for SAR imaging.

Growing community of inventors

Laguna Niguel, CA, United States of America

Michael Gubala