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Stealth aircraft are designed primarily to make radar detection more difficult, creating an ongoing challenge for the sensors responsible for finding and tracking them. Researchers are now exploring whether another technology, normally associated with mapping, autonomous vehicles and surveying, could provide an additional source of information.
Researchers at the China Airborne Missile Academy have modeled a single-photon LiDAR seeker that, according to their simulation, could detect an F-35C from as far as 38.2 miles (61.5 kilometers) at night.
Unlike radar, LiDAR actively illuminates a target with laser pulses and measures the returning light. Single-photon detectors are sensitive enough to register extremely weak reflections, potentially allowing useful measurements even when very little laser energy returns to the sensor.
According to Interesting Engineering, the modeled system operates at 1,064 nanometers and uses 1-millijoule laser pulses with a 100-millimeter optical lens. Researchers incorporated atmospheric transmission, background light, detector noise and the detector’s recovery time into their calculations.
Their model found a substantial difference between daytime and nighttime operation. During daylight, the simulated detection range reached 27.7 kilometers. At night, lower background illumination allowed the predicted range to increase to 61.4 kms.
At 17.2 miles, the model predicted depth accuracy of approximately 20 centimeters and transverse resolution of around 51 centimeters.
Those figures remain simulation results rather than demonstrated performance from an operational missile seeker.
LiDAR also presents an important limitation for target acquisition: its laser beam is narrow. Radar can search a much broader volume of airspace, while a tightly focused laser generally needs a good indication of where to look. The technology could therefore complement rather than simply replace radar or infrared sensing.
That principle extends well beyond missile guidance. LiDAR’s ability to measure distance and physical structure from reflected laser light also makes it relevant to space-based sensing and mapping.
Mounted on satellites, LiDAR systems can potentially measure terrain elevation, buildings and vegetation in high resolution, providing three-dimensional information where conventional optical imagery alone may be limited. Technologies originally developed for autonomous vehicles, surveying or other terrestrial applications could therefore have another destination: orbit.
This creates a dual-use opportunity for companies developing compact lasers, detectors, optics, signal-processing algorithms or complete LiDAR systems. A technology designed to map a road or building from the ground may contain building blocks relevant to future commercial and defense space sensors.
This is also a technology area relevant to INNOFENSE, the innovation program operated by iHLS in cooperation with the Israeli Ministry of Defense and DDR&D (MAFAT). Companies developing advanced LiDAR and laser-sensing technologies can apply with solutions that could be adapted to new defense applications and explored through a POC with the defense establishment.
In other words: take your LiDAR from the road to space. The underlying physics may be familiar, but the next market, and the next sensing mission, could be very different.
Are you working on a technology that might relate to LiDAR, laser sensing, or advanced mapping technology and think it might be able to apply to space-based sensing or defense applications? Apply to INNOFENSE now!
