Monostatic all-fiber rangefinder system

A rangefinder based on a fiber-coupled, monostatic system that transmits and receives through the same aperture has been developed. Some of the advantageous characteristics include elimination of the requirement for precision alignment of the receiver detector and smaller size than bistatic systems using separate transmit and receive apertures. Because there is no parallax between transmit and receive beam paths, optimum receiver alignment is maintained for all ranges. The system operates at 50 kpps and uses a 27 mm diameter/40 mm focal length transmit/receive lens. The standard deviation range precision of the system is 7.8 mm at 50 m with 3.3 μJ pulses.