Patent ID: 8605761

Claim:
A multi-beam laser control system comprising: a laser transmitter configured to emit light in a plurality of beamlets toward a remote target, wherein each beamlet is coherent with all other beamlets and adjustable in phase and steering independent of all other beamlets; a plurality of first sensors, each first sensor optically coupled to one of the plurality of beamlets and configured to measure a direction of light backscattered off the target relative to the coupled beamlet; a second sensor configured to receive light from the beamlets backscattered off the target through a plurality of sensor apertures and to measure an intensity of received light in each sensor aperture; a processor communicably coupled to the first sensors and to the second sensor and configured to compute a phase correction and a steering correction for each beamlet; and a controller communicably coupled to the processor and to the laser transmitter and configured to adjust a phase and steering of each beamlet.