A compact led lidar system fitted for a mars rover – design and ground experiment

Prane Mariel Ong ,Naohito Otobe,Hiroaki Kuze,Yasuhiro Kawabata,Tatsuo Shiina,Hiroki Senshu,Naohiro Manago,George L Hashimoto

doi:10.1051/epjconf/201817602013

Prane Mariel Ong , Naohito Otobe + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201817602013

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Abstract

A compact LED lidar was constructed and fieldtested with the aim to observe the Mars’ dust devils. To be able to fit it on the Mars rover, a specialized Cassegrain telescope was designed to be within a 10 cm-cube, with a field of view of 3mrad. The transmitter has 385 nm LED light source with 3 cmϕ opening, 70mrad divergence, 0.75W (7.5nJ/10ns) pulse power, and 500 kHz repetition frequency. The configuration of the optical system is biaxial to easily configure the overlap between their optical axes.

Highlights

Mars explorations and missions have continuously been conducted for several decades to monitor Mars temperature, biological life, atmosphere, and dust [1]
The motion and size of the observed Martian dust devils can be estimated from images obtained from satellites and rovers, still the quantitative information from these estimates were poorly constrained [6]
A classical laser lidar system is generally too large in volume and in mass to be onboard a Mars rover, and it needs a cooler that requires large amount of power to be operational

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Mars explorations and missions have continuously been conducted for several decades to monitor Mars temperature, biological life, atmosphere, and dust [1]. A classical laser lidar system is generally too large in volume and in mass to be onboard a Mars rover, and it needs a cooler that requires large amount of power to be operational Given these restrictions and the extreme surface temperature condition on Mars, our team have examined the use of LED (light emitting diode) as the light source of the mini lidar system to be installed in a Mars rover. The transmitter has a 385 nm wavelength NUV-LED, which is commercially manufactured by Nichia Corporation It has a 0.75W pulsed power with 10 ns pulse width at 500 kHz pulse-repetition frequency given a beam divergence of about 70 mrad. To be able to perform the ground experiment and the initial performance evaluation, the compact LED lidar transmitter and receiver were housed in a polyvinyl chloride as the frame material (see Figure 1).

Wind Tunnel Experiment

Field Experiment

SUMMARY