Integrated time-of-flight laser radar

A small, hand-held pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) laser radar device was designed and tested. The aim was to implement the receiver channel and time-to-digital converter (TDC) with application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) in order to reduce current consumption, cost, weight and size. The measurement range of the device is 1...20 m to a noncooperative target (reflectivity >0.3) and an accuracy of <35 mm is achieved with measuring time of 200 ms in a temperature range of -10...+30/spl deg/C. Power consumption during continuous measurement is 0.84 W.