Patent ID: 7312855

Claim:
A laser radar system for producing a composite image for identifying a non-cooperative object of interest, comprising: (a) means for producing a transmit laser beam; (b) detector means for detecting coherent backscattered light from said transmit laser beam and incoherent backscattered light from said transmit laser beam; (c) means for generating a local oscillator laser beam to induce shot noise limited operation in said detector means; (d) optical means for optically expanding said transmit laser beam while simultaneously optically collecting said backscattered light for focusing onto said detector means; (e) means for directing said transmit laser beam towards said optical means; (f) means for reflecting said transmit laser beam through said optical means to said object of interest while simultaneously passing detected backscattered light; (g) means for generating a first electrical signal containing micro-Doppler vibration spectrum information obtained from said detector means which is caused by an interaction of said detected backscattered light and said local oscillator beam with a first portion of an array within said detector means; (h) means for generating a second electrical signal containing three dimensional shape image information obtained from said detector means which is caused by an interaction of said detected backscattered light with a second portion of the array within said detector means; (i) processor means for processing said first and second electrical signals received from the output of said detector means wherein said processor means performs signal conditioning, pre-amplification, amplification, range measurements, frequency measurements, and discriminating phase differences resident in said coherent backscattered light; (j) image generating means for generating a single composite image, responsive to digital signals output by said processor means, wherein said digital signals includes said three dimensional shape image information and said micro-Doppler vibration spectrum information; said image generating means merging said three dimensional shape image information with said micro-Doppler vibration spectrum information; (k) means for transforming said single composite image into a set of data structures for retrieval from a computer readable medium; (l) comparison means for comparing said set of data structures to a plurality of data structure sets representative of known objects for identifying said non-cooperative object of interest; and (m) means for interfacing a user to the output received from said comparison means whereby a user is appraised of identification of said non-cooperative object.