A 532 nm chaotic lidar transmitter for high resolution underwater ranging and imaging

A chaotic lidar transmitter based on an ultra-long cavity fiber laser is presented for underwater ranging and imaging applications. Experimental results show 150 mW continuous output power at 532 nm, with wideband (>3 GHz) chaotic intensity modulation. An incoherent digital receiver is used to show a ranging accuracy of 1 cm in a water tank with a measurement-limited range resolution of ±4 cm. There is no range ambiguity because of the non-repeating nature of the chaotic signal.