The design and manufacture of the opto-mechanical sub-system for a laser radar scanner is presented, with a discussion of the initial system design considerations leading to a description of the detailed optical design. The scanner offers high spatial resolution in three dimensions, a characteristic that imposed severe limitations on the optical configuration. In addition, the requirement that it should be capable of operation in a factory environment, and hence safe to the eyes of operators, demands an extremely high signal-to-noise level to permit the use of a relatively low power laser. This requirement also dictates the need for accurate alignment, details of which are presented along with results of the optical testing.
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