For over thirty years Optech has been designing and building LIDAR systems that have been used in a variety of environments for a number of different applications throughout the world and beyond. This talk will present some of the basic principles of time-of-flight LIDAR; what it is and how it works. Also discussed will be some of the interesting and unique applications that have been found for this technology.
Outline:
- Basic Principles
- System Components
- Simple Ranging Applications
- Underground Cavity Measurement
- Airborne LIDAR Terrain Mapping and Bathymetry
- LIDAR Imaging
- Orbital Rendezvous and Docking

Jeff Tripp is Senior Engineer in the Space and Atmospheric Division at Optech. He is the technical lead for Optech's orbital rendezvous LIDAR system for the AFRL and the Phoenix Mars Scout Mission MET LIDAR (developed cooperatively with MDA Space Missions) and he has been a key person within an integrated design team. Prior to this Mr. Tripp led the initial development of Optech's commercial LIDAR survey instrument, ILRIS-3D. During his more than twenty-five years at Optech he has played a substantial role as Project Engineer in the development of several major airborne LIDAR systems such as profilometers, terrain mappers and LIDAR bathymeters and has participated in the design and development of a variety of commercial laser rangefinders. His duties have included conceptual and detailed design, circuit design, programming, assembly, integration and testing. He has extensive experience in lasers, optics, detectors, high-speed digital and analog circuitry, and microprocessor hardware. He graduated with a diploma in Electrical Technology, with options in both Electronics and Computer Science from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (1980) and is a licensed professional engineer with Professional Engineers Ontario (1993). He has been a member of the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), Laser Radar Technical Group since 2000.