03.08.23 -- How Smart Active Alignment Can Reduce Manufacturing Costs

The flourishing field of LiDAR is building on a foundation laid by silicon photonics and smartphones, an outcome that surprised all but the most leading-edge thinkers in ultraprecision manufacturing, engineering, and innovation theory.

Some of the most important components of LiDAR sensors are the filters that isolate target signals while preventing sunlight and other extraneous light from reaching the detector. A wide variety of applications and sensor types exist, from laser altimeters to Raman LiDAR systems.

Engineers and designers working on LiDAR applications should consider critical filter issues early on.

This white paper discusses the importance of precisely measuring LiDAR parameters and its impact on the performance and construction of LiDAR systems.

Autonomous vehicles, military ranging, atmospheric sensing, and traffic monitoring are just some of the applications for this versatile technique.

Not all laser applications are as futuristic in Star Wars, but some of the applications involving high-power lasers get pretty close! From nuclear fusion to measuring the distance to the moon, lasers have found all sorts of surprising uses.

When companies need to scale up the size of their windows and mirrors while maintaining the most exacting of optical specifications, the competence of a chosen partner is essential.

In Central America, laser technology is providing insights into the past. Pulsed laser diodes in the near IR range are commonly used in LiDAR cartography, helping prove undiscovered settlement history, including potential sites and burial mounds in Guatemala. 

Space is perhaps no longer "the final frontier," but as an operating environment for optical components, it remains in many ways the ultimate test of the technology’s reliability, resilience, and precision — far more so, typically, than with terrestrial applications.