Scheimpflug cameras for range-resolved observations of the atmospheric effects on laser propagation

This paper presents the development of Scheimpflug cameras for lidar and remote sensing with an emphasis on active and passive range-finding. Scheimpflug technology uses a tilted camera geometry to natively encode 3D information through projected off-axis pixel view angles and holds the unique potential to serve as an alternative to traditional lidar and remote sensing systems with the demonstrated advantages of high configurability, SWaP-C (Size, Weight and Power-Cost) efficiency and short- vs. far-range optimization. In this work, we demonstrate several compact Scheimpflug-enabled systems as a snapshot atmospheric lidar detector to measure aerosol extinction and optical turbulence effects with high precision over ranges from a few meters to a few kilometer. We compare the instrument's measurements to variance-based Cn2 data collected by a conic anemometer and scintillometer over a 50 m horizontal path. This paper also presents preliminary results on utilizing Scheimpflug technology for photogrammetry, 2D/3D mapping and includes a generalized discussion on the design, alignment and calibration procedures. We believe this work provides a strong basis for the broad use of Scheimpflug technology across multiple use-cases with the fields of lidar and remote sensing.