HIGH-RESOLUTION LASER LIDAR UTILIZING 2-SECTION DISTRIBUTED FEEDBACK SEMICONDUCTOR-LASER AS A COHERENT SOURCE

An air-spaced coherent LIDAR (light detection and ranging) employing a two-section distributed feedback (DFB) injection laser is demonstrated. The relative distance of a mirror target was detected with 0.1 µm resolution. The absolute distance of a diffuse target was measured with 1 cm accuracy. These results indicate that semiconductor lasers developed for communication systems may be useful for sensing applications such as robotic vision, surface profiling and automated fabrication. © 1990, The Institution of Electrical Engineers. All rights reserved.