Simulation of 3D LADAR imaging system using fast target response generation approach

Abstract

A new approach has been used to generate the target response for the Laser Detection and Ranging or laser radar (LADAR) simulator. This approach is fast and able to deal with high scanning resolution and complex target models. This leads to a more efficient LADAR simulator and opens up the possibility for simulating more complex scenes LADAR images. The approach is to derived the target angular ranges algorithms in order to directly select the target's parts that lie in the laser field (parts required for target response generation) instead of checking the whole target as it's done by the normal approach. The performances of these two approaches are compared for a variety of conditions. The simulation results show an enhanced performance when using the proposed approach.