Abstract
In recent years, LIDAR has been used in remote sensing systems, obstacle avoidance systems on planetary landers, rendezvous docking systems, and formation flight control systems. A wide dynamic range is necessary for LIDAR systems on planetary landers and in rendezvous docking systems. For example, a dynamic range of 60 dB was required for the receiving system used in the Hayabusa mission in order to measure distances between 50 m and 50 km. In addition, an obstacle detection and avoidance system of a planetary lander requires a ranging resolution of better than 10 cm. For planetary landers, ISAS/JAXA is developing a customized integrated circuit (IC) for LIDAR reception. This report introduces the design of the customized IC and reports the results of preliminary experiments evaluating the prototype, LIDARX03.
