Tracking system for photon-counting laser radar

The purpose of this thesis is to build the tracking system for a photon-counting laser radar specifically a laser radar that has the ability to perform direct and coherent detection measurement at low signal levels with common laser, optics and detector hardware. The heart of the tracking algorithm is a Kalman filter, and optimal Kalman filter parameters are determined using software simulations. The tracking algorithm was tested against various simulated (software only) and emulated (with actual hardware) trajectories. We also built and tested the real-time tracking system hardware. The algorithms and methods proposed in this thesis achieve the objective of tracking a target at 1,500 km range to within 1-cm accuracy.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Chang, Joshua TsuKang

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Leaf Jiang and James K. Roberge.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41260

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/41260