Phased-array Laser Radar Control Technology Research And Application

Phased array laser radar is a new radar system combining with laser radar and phased array technology, which the liquid crystal phased array (LCPA) is a critical component of it. By modulating the voltages in different regions of liquid crystal, LCPA controls the rotation degrees of liquid crystal molecule and the phase delays on each unit to incident laser. In the process the laser beam could obtain the same phase surface and the mutually enhanced interference, and realize the precise electronic scanning of laser beam. The beamsteering technology is one of the important parts to achieving high quality and accurate scanning laser beam.In this paper,the beamsteering scheme design and the beamsteering device manufacture of beamsteering technology of phased array laser radar is shown below.1) According to the phased array beamsteering principle and the blazed grating beamsteering principle, the LCPA beamsteering principle is reaserched and analysed.2) The overall structure and significant indicators of the LCPA component are analysed. The beamsteering scheme including multistage voltage generation mode and beamsteering data generation mode is designed on the base of the interface of liquid crystal phase shifter and the LCD driving chip.3) Fulfilled the main chip selections, the designing of periphery circuit and interface of these chips, the manufacturing of beamsteering device hardware circuit, the programming of the HDL for FPGA, the debugging of each module of circuit and the data path of beamsteering device.4) Accomplished the programming and debugging of the implementation of beamsteering data generation mode by software, the programming of the PC display and control interface.5) Completed the laser beamsteering experiment by LCPA component, tested the liquid crystal characteristic curve by the optic platform. The results of the experiment is analyzed, the improved plan is proposed.The experiment results proved that the beamsteering scheme and the beamsteering device which designed and implemented in this paper can realized the precise electronic scanning of laser beam.