Jigsaw phase III: a miniaturized airborne 3-D imaging laser radar with photon-counting sensitivity for foliage penetration

Abstract

Jigsaw three-dimensional (3D) imaging laser radar is a compact, light-weight system for imaging highly obscured targets through dense foliage semi-autonomously from an unmanned aircraft. The Jigsaw system uses a gimbaled sensor operating in a spot light mode to laser illuminate a cued target, and autonomously capture and produce the 3D image of hidden targets under trees at high 3D voxel resolution. With our MIT Lincoln Laboratory team members, the sensor system has been integrated into a geo-referenced 12-inch gimbal, and used in airborne data collections from a UH-1 manned helicopter, which served as a surrogate platform for the purpose of data collection and system validation. In this paper, we discuss the results from the ground integration and testing of the system, and the results from UH-1 flight data collections. We also discuss the performance results of the system obtained using ladar calibration targets.