We discuss using the broadband coherent output of a femtosecond fiber laser as a source for coherent LIDAR. In any coherent LIDAR system, speckle limits the signal-to-noise ratio to unity, regardless of the transmitter power. However, by using a frequency comb source, one can take advantage of additional transmitter power by transmitting on multiple wavelengths across a broad spectrum. In that case, the additional transmitter power can yield either higher range resolution images or more accurate Doppler estimates of the target velocity.
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