Imaging Lidar system for night vision and surveillance applications

Night Vision Imaging Lidar system technology finds many applications including public safety, surveillance, defense etc. This paper describes the constructional features of the Night Vision Imaging Lidar System (NVIL) developed in the laboratory for imaging of targets with at least 90% recognition capability up to a range of about 2 km for field use in night time and up to a range of about 4 km in day time. The system is capable of continues monitoring and store the video. This lidar system is based on a compact Nd: YAG pulsed laser system and uses a novel transmitter receiver configuration. Also the system can be used for the recognition of people at strategic places for security applications. We present the design methodology of the NVIL system and some experimental results obtained when the system is used for imaging the targets during complete dark conditions in the field. The gating technology is also investigated which improve the capability of the system for accurate detections of the targets even under bad weather conditions.