Monolithic Integrated Coherent Optical Receiver for Space Vehicle LIDAR Sensors

Past NASA landing missions have used radar for vehicle position and velocity data in the absence of GPS. Future landing missions will require a viable replacement for obsolete radars. Coherent Doppler Lidar technology offers a suitable path for replacing radar with an order of magnitude higher precision as a landing sensor to help control the critical last 5 kilometers or so of landing approach. NASA has developed a highly capable Navigation Doppler Lidar, or NDL which has gone through extensive testing under several field conditions. NDL is about the size of a breadbox and further reduction in Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) is desirable for practical deployment in a wide range of vehicles. SWaP reduction of about an order of magnitude can be achieved through monolithic photonic integration. Freedom Photonics has strong expertise in the development of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) and proposes in this effort to develop a Monolithic Integrated Coherent Optical Receiver PIC for Lidar systems, supporting navigation and landing of space vehicles.