Modulated pulse LIDAR system for shallow underwater target detection

This paper concerns the merging of the lightwave and microwave technologies in remote sensing and its application to airborne light detecting and ranging (LIDAR). By modulating an optical pulse at microwave frequencies, a coherent, underwater detection scheme is produced which provides orders of magnitude improvement over the presently-existing LIDAR system. Laboratory measurements show an unprecedented 17 dB optical (34 dB electrical) suppression of the backscatter clutter and a corresponding enhancement in shallow underwater target contrast. In this paper, the implementation of the modulated pulse LIDAR system is discussed and experimental results supporting the predicted improvements in detection sensitivity will be analyzed