Laser Range Finder for Air Borne Application

Laser Range Finder (LRF) is a most commonly used sensor for non-contact distance measurement and its applications cover wide areas of civil and defense. This paper discusses the design of Time of Flight (TOF) based single channel pulsed LRF, in which single optical channel has been used for transmitting and receiving of laser pulse with the day sighting capability. It offers considerable size reduction over dual channel counterpart without compromising the performance of LRF. The LRF supports ARINC-429 interface to make the sensor compatible with avionics systems and multiple Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF) to fulfill the varying data density requirements. The mechanical design of the LRF has been carried out to fulfill the airworthy requirements. Since the system requires alignment between transmitter, receiver module and day-sight graticule, precise beam steering mechanisms and movements have been provided. Environmental tests as per MIL Std 810E have been carried out on various mechanical sub-assemblies and electronic module to increase the reliability of the system. The performance of the LRF has been tested in practical scenario and found better than the dual channel LRF.