Simulation and modeling of laser range profiling and imaging of small surface vessels

Abstract

The detection and classification of small surface targets at long ranges is a growing need for naval security. Simulations of a laser radar at 1.5 μm aimed for search, detect, and recognition of small maritime targets will be discussed. The data for the laser radar system will be based on present and realistic future technology. The simulated data generate signal waveforms for every pixel in the sensor field-of-view. From these we can also generate two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) range and intensity images. The simulations will incorporate typical target movements at different sea states, vessel courses, effects of the atmospheric turbulence and also include different beam jitter. The laser pulse energy, repetition rate as well as the receiver and detector parameters have been the same during the simulations. We have also used a high resolution (sub centimeter) laser radar based on time correlated single photon counting to acquire examples of range profiles from different small model ships. The collected waveforms are compared with simulated wave forms based on 3-D models of the ships. A discussion of the classification potential based on information in 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D data separately and in combination is made versus different environmental conditions and system parameters.

Quantitative laser safety analysis for application of high-energy lasers in a field test

“…A comprehensive and coherent risk assessment is not expectable until common modeling with verified data is established. Recent progress in modelling of environmental scenes is tremendous, for example as shown in [30]. However consumption of resources of such simulations is high, a lot of data has to be gathered, fitted to the models and processed.…”

Analytical and numerical approaches to study echo laser pulse profile affected by target and atmospheric turbulence

“…To the best of our knowledge, previous studies have shown that the ELPP is mainly affected by the response of detectors [12], targets shape [13] and atmosphere, etc [14]. Although previous studies have presented relative results on the ELPP affected by targets [5,15,16], the results are based on the assumption of neglecting effect from atmospheric turbulence. Meanwhile, the theoretical model of the ELPP of a target with arbitrary shape has not been studied under the condition of combinations of target and atmospheric turbulence.…”

“…With the fast development of pulse laser, many detecting sensors such as ranging sensors [1,2] and three-dimensional (3D) sensors [3,4] have been studied and developed. Moreover, target recognition based on pulse laser has attracted much attention these years due to its ability to acquire echo pulse with high accuracy and efficiency [5,6]. Therefore, it has been widely used in applications including remote sensing [7], navigation [8] and tracking [9], etc.…”

“…Therefore, it has been widely used in applications including remote sensing [7], navigation [8] and tracking [9], etc. It is well known that echo laser pulse profile (ELPP) is one of the most important features, which only reflects the shape of target [9], but also affects the performances of 3D image [5]. For target recognition based on the ELPP, compared with traditional methods based on imaging process, the shape of the target is obtained by the use of the ELPP without optical scanning system [10].…”

Dense surface reconstruction based on the fusion of monocular vision and three-dimensional flash light detection and ranging

“…Optical range-based sensors such as stereo vision [1][2][3][4] and scanning light detection and ranging (LIDAR), [5][6][7] have commonly been used in target surface acquiring. Optical range-based sensors such as stereo vision [1][2][3][4] and scanning light detection and ranging (LIDAR), [5][6][7] have commonly been used in target surface acquiring.…”