The National Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced at the end of December last year that it plans to develop an ultra-small lidar system. The related project is called a modular optical aperture building module. By using the current semiconductor manufacturing process, the plane and millimeter-level light emission and light detection units are constructed to form 100 and 100 million cell array.
It seeks to develop and replace the traditional optical system used in current lidar systems, which consists of a stabilizing mechanism, a precise lens, and a mirror with high surface tolerance. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency stated that by removing lenses, mirrors and mechanical components, and integrating active and passive optical components into a planar device, the final system will be 100 times smaller in volume and weight than the current system.
The lidar system creates a three-dimensional image for topographic mapping and measurement by emitting laser pointer energy and measuring the intensity of the returned laser pulse. Lidar can also be used to track target movement. The project will include two parallel technical fields with a duration of 5 years and a total investment of 58 million U.S. dollars.
The compact lidar system conceived by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency can be used for small drones to improve situational awareness and force protection capabilities in jungles and dense forests. Remote jungles that require surveillance and reconnaissance are usually not fully or accurately reflected on the map. Patrolling in the jungle often encounters unpredictable terrain, such as hills, cliffs and canyons that are not recorded or displayed incorrectly. The lidar system has vegetation penetration imaging capabilities and can be used for terrain surveying and reconnaissance to provide more accurate and detailed terrain and altitude information.
France developed a new frequency-doubled laser module. It can efficiently generate a few watts of power in the visible spectrum, which was difficult to achieve in the past. This compact module can generate several watts of optical power with high energy efficiency, has excellent output beam quality and high optical stability, and lays the foundation for field or vehicle applications of high-performance laser emission with a power of several watts.
The module achieves more than 5 watts of optical power in the range of 765nm and 805nm, and has a conversion efficiency of more than 70% (other wavelengths are also available), and can be used for quantum technology devices, remote sensing radars, and biophotonics applications.
Regardless of the input power level, this conversion can be realized efficiently and has excellent optical quality. The fast adjustability of several hundred MHz and a powerful and active stabilization scheme provide good stability for the module.
Although this frequency doubling module can be provided by the company as an independent device, Muquans can also provide a complete green laser pointer system for a fully integrated rack, including a high-performance seed laser and an amplifier-level frequency doubling unit, as well as a dedicated ultra-low Noisy electronics constitute an out-of-the-box solution. The development of customized laser modules can also be provided.