Description: To address NASA's need for novel lidar technologies with an emphasis on compactness, efficiency, reliability, lifetime, and high performance, Intellisense Systems, Inc. (Intellisense) proposes to develop a new Spaceborne Scanning Lidar (SBSL) Sensor for three-dimensional (3D) mapping, suitable for deployment on unmanned aerial vehicles, SmallSats, and CubeSats, or stratospheric platforms. The innovations (1) in the sensor design using geometric phase (GP) flat lenses in an afocal telescope integrated with (2) a wide-field-of-view (WFOV) electro-optical phased array exploiting the Talbot light redistribution for 100% fill factor, and (3) a flat adaptive lens for the telescope athermalization supporting diffraction limit performance will allow the system to achieve down to <1 m space resolution from >100 km altitude, >20 deg FOV with 0.2 arcsec pointing accuracy, and <10 ms rate per sweep in the SBSL sensor. The size, weight, and power consumption (SWaP) do not exceed 1.26 cub. ft, 6 lb, and <60 W, respectively. Thus, the SBSL addresses several of the key technological gaps suffered by existing lidar sensors. In Phase I, Intellisense will develop a viable conceptual design of the SBSL sensor that satisfies NASA's resolution and range requirements, including SWaP, FOV, pointing accuracy, and sweep rate, and demonstrate the design's feasibility by modeling and simulation of the sensor performance under Mars landing conditions. We will also identify additional research and development work and formulate a Phase II plan including potential risks and risk mitigation strategies. In Phase II, Intellisense will optimize and refine the design and build, test, and deliver a demonstration SBSL prototype at TRL-5. The key milestone of Phase II will be testing of the prototype in a relevant environment. Preliminary designs will be made for a Phase III device.

Benefits: With its low-SWaP design and high spatial resolution, the SBSL sensor will be appropriate for many NASA applications including spacecraft guidance, navigation and control (GNC) capability, lunar, Mars, and Deep Space distributed science missions, orbital debris tracking and transient phenomena observation, high-altitude topography to support studies of vegetation and the cryosphere of Earth, as well as the surface of planets and solar system bodies, and proximity operations for inspection of space assets.These applications include implementation on all air, land, and sea autonomous vehicles, for which payload size, weight, and power are at a premium. The improved spatial resolution and long distance enable such platforms to provide superior imaging and target identification capabilities by generating a range profile of a region of interest, which is becoming vital to various DoD and commercial applications involving surveillance, situational awareness, and tracking. The low cost and scalability of compact sensors are suitable for integrating with non-returnable, expendable (single use), small unmanned aircraft systems (SUASs), autonomous robotics, and other chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) remotely operated systems to improve situational awareness by providing the ability to rapidly assess battle damage, improve threat awareness, and provide more efficient navigation. The SBSL sensor's flat optics can be also scaled down for Switchblade, Coyote, or other SUASs launched from the common launch tube (CLT) on an aircraft for off-board sensing when clouds or degraded environments prevent visual access to a battlefield from the primary air platform, thus providing high-confidence ID for high-value targets and protecting aircrews. Due to advantages in terms of coverage and cost, the Intellisense solution can be adopted by the automotive and aircraft industries for navigation and collision avoidance and various other industries for pipeline and power line monitoring, highway and rail track inspection, perimeter security, research missions, inspection of damages directly tied to a natural disaster or event, and for agro-environmental mapping and monitoring.