Low-cost compact ladar sensor for ground robots

The Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is researching a short-range ladar imager for small unmanned ground vehicles for navigation, obstacle/collision avoidance, and target detection and identification. To date, commercial ladars for this application have been flawed by one or more factors including, low pixelization, insufficient range or range resolution, image artifacts, no daylight operation, large size, high power consumption, and high cost. The ARL conceived a scanned ladar design based on a newly developed but commercial MEMS mirror and a pulsed Erbium fiber laser. The desired performance includes a 6 Hz frame rate, an image size of 256 (h) × 128 (v) pixels, a 60° × 30° field of regard, 20 m range, eyesafe operation, and 40 cm range resolution (with provisions for super-resolution or accuracy). The ladar will be integrated on an iRobot PackBot. To date, we have built and tested the transceiver when mounted in the PackBot armmounted sensor head. All other electronics including the data acquisition and signal processing board, the power distribution board, and other smaller ancillary boards are built and operating. We are now operating the ladar and working on software development. This paper will describe the ladar design and progress in its development and performance.