LASER POINTER SYSTEM FOR DAY AND NIGHT USE
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A laser pointer system, comprising:
- a laser capable of emitting short laser pulses;
a synchronization photodiode to detect arriving reflections of said short laser pulses;
a camera to detect a remote laser spot; and
a display to display the position of said laser spot, wherein said camera is gated synchronously with the laser pulses.
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Abstract
A novel eye-safe, long range laser pointer system for use in day or night conditions is described. The system uses a short pulse laser and a gated camera to detect the laser spot at long ranges in the presence of a strong solar background. The camera gate is synchronized with incident laser pulses using a separate large area, fast photodiode to detect the high peak power pulses. Alternately, gate synchronization using a GPS-disciplined clock can be used. Eye-safe systems operating in the near-UV or SWIR band are described.
12 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A laser pointer system, comprising:
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a laser capable of emitting short laser pulses; a synchronization photodiode to detect arriving reflections of said short laser pulses; a camera to detect a remote laser spot; and a display to display the position of said laser spot, wherein said camera is gated synchronously with the laser pulses. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A GPS-based laser pointer system, comprising:
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a laser capable of emitting short laser pulses; a GPS-disciplined clock; a camera that is gated synchronously with said laser pulses based on a GPS signal from said GPS-disciplined clock to detect a remote laser spot; and a display to display the position of said laser spot, wherein said camera generates a display signal for display of a context image having an image of said laser spot. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A laser pointing method based on a laser pointer system, the method comprising:
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directing a laser beam of short pulses from a laser towards a distant surface; detecting by a photodiode laser pulses scattered from said laser beam incident on said distant surface; producing a detection signal from a photodiode detection circuit based on said detection of scattered laser pulses; triggering a gated camera based on said detection signal from the photodiode detection circuit so that the gate coincides with the scattered laser pulses incident on the camera to generate a camera image signal; and generating a context image on a display based on said camera image signal, wherein said context image includes the position of an imaged laser spot shown on said display. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification