Autonomous air vehicles for the armed services require advanced sensors to support mission-critical requirements. These requirements include terrain navigation, obstacle avoidance, reconnaissance, and target acquisition (detection, classification and identification). Technologies and systems developed initially for the military will be applicable to remotely piloted air vehicles, drones, and autonomous air vehicles for non-military government and commercial applications such as surveying, disaster relief, firefighting, law enforcement, border patrol, area surveillance, search and rescue, environmental monitoring and hazardous waste cleanup. This paper will describe an innovative laser radar (LIDAR) concept that acquires a high resolution 3-D "snapshot" image with extremely low active emissions, making it eye-safe and ideal for covert applications requiring a low probability of intercept. In addition, the scannerless LIDAR imaging system acquires thousands of 3-D data points simultaneously with no moving parts, resulting in reliable operation for demanding mission requirements and harsh environmental conditions.
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