Patent ID: 7095489

Claim:
A laser-radar receiver comprising at least one may comprised of the first ends of a plurality of optical fibres, wherein the corresponding opposite ends of said optical fibres of the array are connected to the same electromagnetic radiation detector means, each of said optical fibres having differing physical characteristics which result in known and differing delays in the transmission time of pulsed electromagnetic radiation incident on said first ends of said optical fibres to the electromagnetic detector means, wherein each of said optical fibres has at least two different paths for the electromagnetic radiation, a splitter being provided for splitting each pulse of electromagnetic radiation between each of the different paths, the paths being recombined by a recombiner prior to reaching the detector, the recombiner and the splitter being separate optical devices such that the electromagnetic radiation is not permitted to feedback, and whereby each of said at least two paths associated with an optical fibre of the array has a different physical characteristic from the other of said at least two pats associated with said optical fibre of the array wherein the time taken for a pulse of radiation to travel along said one of the paths is different from the time taken for a pulse of radiation to travel along said other of the paths.