Laser smoothing technology is employed not only in near field but also in far field in order to make images of scenes on the ground on the basis of echoes in systems such as 3-D imaging lidar. In this paper, the principle of superposition after partition is described in detail. Two methods for laser smoothing are introduced, one of which is lens array, capable of attaining a large area of uniform illumination in far-field, and the other one is birefringent lenses, suitable to obtain a small area of uniform illumination in far-field. A comparison is made about the performance characteristics of the two methods from different aspects. This provides a reference about how to choose smoothing methods to achieve uniform irradiation.

Date Published: 31 August 2009
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 7382, International Symposium on Photoelectronic Detection and Imaging 2009: Laser Sensing and Imaging, 738242 (31 August 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.836546

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7382:
International Symposium on Photoelectronic Detection and Imaging 2009: Laser Sensing and Imaging
Farzin Amzajerdian; Chun-qing Gao; Tian-yu Xie, Editor(s)