Impact of Random Pointing Errors on Coherent Laser Radar Efficiency and Scintillation Index: A Theoretical Overview

Introduction We summarize work in progress [1] describing the impact of random pointing errors on coherent ladar performance. Pointing errors (random jitter and bias) reduce the coherent ladar mean signal power and increase signal scintillation. Performance depends on magnitude of the pointing errors compared to the size of the transmit beam, backpropagated local oscillator (BPLO) beam, the target and the degree to which the two beams are correlated in the target plane. The target size plays a key role. When operating against an essentially infinitely wide target, the transmitter and receiver are never misaligned with the target regardless of the size of the pointing error. However, the transmitter and receiver may be misaligned with respect to each other. In the case of a very small target, misalignment between the beams and the target also plays a role.