Three-dimensional imaging interferometric synthetic aperture ladar

A monostatic strip-map mode interferometric synthetic aperture ladar (SAL) is reported. Using a chirped laser of about 5 mW at 1550 nm wavelength as the illumination source and two cross-track receiving apertures with a baseline of 1.6 mm, the ladar can generate both well-focused two-dimensional SAL images without adopting phase error removing techniques and three-dimensional images by interferometric SAL techniques. Detailed results are illustrated for retro-reflective or diffusive targets at a distance of 2.4 m.