Integrated time-of-flight laser radar

A small, hand-held pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) laser radar device has been designed and tested. The aim was to implement the receiver channel and time-to-digital converter (TDC) with application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC's) in order to reduce power consumption, cost, weight, and size. The measurement range of the device is from 1 m to 30 m to a noncooperative target, and an accuracy of 35 mm is achieved with a measuring time of 200 ms between temperatures of -10/spl deg/C and +30/spl deg/C. Power consumption during continuous measurement is 0.84 W.