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Emily Caldwell, Laura Sinclair, Jean-Daniel Deschenes, Nathan R. Newbury
Abstract
Dual comb ranging is a well-established method of laser-based ranging that exploits frequency combs to provide absolute, high-precision measurements. It suffers, however, from a significant power penalty when compared with conventional FMCW LIDAR. Here, we demonstrate >25 dB improvement in the minimum received powers needed for dual comb ranging. Under our operating conditions, the minimum received power drops from order 1 nW to 1 pW while maintaining a range precision of <6 μm at a 26 kHz update rate. In conventional dual comb ranging, a measurement comb is sent to the target and then mixed with a reference comb with an offset repetition rate. Here we do away with the repetition rate offset and instead run the reference comb as a tracking oscillator following the movement of the measurement comb's pulses. This work positions dual comb ranging as a promising method of high precision ranging in dynamic, power-starved environments.
Caldwell, E.
, Sinclair, L.
, Deschenes, J.
and Newbury, N.
(2022),
Ultra-low Power Dual Frequency Comb Ranging, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=935000
(Accessed June 3, 2023)