Patent ID: 7586586

Claim:
A laser rangefinder comprising: a temperature-controlled crystal oscillator (TCXO) for providing a frequency reference signal; a first direct digital synthesis (DDS) synthesizer, wherein the first DDS synthesizer receives the reference signal from the TCXO; a power amplifier for amplifying the reference signal from the first DDS synthesizer; a laser diode in communication with the power amplifier for outputting a optical signal, wherein the amplified reference signal AM modulates the laser diode output intensity; a second DDS synthesizer for synthesizing a local oscillator frequency based on the reference signal; a receiver mixer for mixing the local oscillator frequency from the second DDS synthesizer and a received signal; an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for converting the output from the receiver mixer to a digital signal; a third DDS synthesizer for synthesizing the reference signals for the ADC; and a digital signal processing (DSP) and control unit for computing a range based on the phase difference between the digitized signal and the reference signal.