Patent ID: 7701559

Claim:
A laser device capable of one dimensional absolute distance measurement of a moving external retroreflector or other moving target surfaces without using an incremental interferometer comprising: a source of laser light that is amplitude or intensity modulated and sent to and returned from the moving external retroreflector or other moving target surfaces to the laser device along a measurement path; an opto-electronic component to convert the laser light returned from the retroreflector or target surfaces along the measurement path into an electrical signal; conditioning electronics for conditioning the first electrical signal to create a second electrical signal; digitizing electronics to produce digitized values of the second electrical signal; a digital signal processor for receiving the digitized values of the second electrical signal wherein the digital signal processor comprises at least a phase extractor module structured to execute a velocity dependant phase extractor function upon the digitized values and wherein the digital signal processor calculates an absolute distance d to the moving retroreflector or other target moving at a velocity v.