Technische Universitat Hamburg-harburg

Metek Gmbh

Thomas Waterholter

Ernst Brinkmeyer

The present invention relates to a lidar measurement system for the detection of the presence and/or motion of particles and/or objects in a space region remote from the lidar measurement system and comprising an interferometer arrangement, as well as to a corresponding method using such a measurement system. The interferometer arrangement comprises a continuous wave laser source (), a photodetector arrangement (), and optical components which are adapted to split light () emitted by the continuous wave laser source (), to guide it along a first optical path constituting a measurement branch () and along a second optical path, which is separate from the first optical path and constitutes a reference branch (), and to eventually have it incident in a spatially coherently superimposed manner onto the photodetector arrangement (). The reference branch () has a predetermined optical path length, and the measurement branch () comprises a measurement portion (), in which the light is directed away from the measurement system towards a space region remote from the measurement system and passes through the space region and light backscattered towards the measurement system by particles present in the space region is received again at the measurement system. Further, an evaluation unit () is provided which is coupled to the photodetector arrangement () and is adapted to receive the detector signal thereof and to determine from the detector signal the presence and/or movement of particles in the remote space region. The continuous wave laser source () has a coherence length in the range of 0.1 to 100 m.

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Rellingen, Germany

Thomas Waterholter