Design and Realization of a 10Hz Diffuse-Reflection Laser Ranging Control System

Both traditional and 1kHz common optical-path Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) techniques have been implemented and applied on the 1.2m telescope of the Yunnan Observatory several years ago. A diffuse-deflection laser ranging system was designed for it recently, and a 10Hz common optical-path diffuse-reflection laser ranging control system has also been designed and installed there. The system includes a laser, returned laser signal detectors, and timing devices. The hardwares of this control system include a Field Programmable Gate Array as the key component, and the user applications are developed with the Visual C++. This system has been used to observe satellites and space debris. Observation results indicate that it can function normally and successfully achieve laser ranging. Finally, we show that it can be directly applied to lunar laser ranging experiments after the SR620 timing device is changed to an event timer.