An FPGA-based method for a reconfigurable and compact scanner controller

An essential part of a LADAR system is the scanner component. The physical scanner and its electrical controller must often be as compact as possible to meet the stringent physical requirements of the system. It is also advantageous to have a reconfigurable electrical scanner controller. This can allow real-time automated dynamic modifications to the scanning characteristics. Via reconfiguration, this can also allow a single scanner controller to be used on multiple physical scanners with different resonant frequencies and reflection angles. The most efficient method to construct a compact scanner with static or dynamic re-configurability is by using an FPGA-based system. FPGAs are extremely compact, reconfigurable, and can be programmed with very complex algorithms. We show here the design and testing of such an FPGA-based system has been designed and tested. We show here this FPGA-based system is able to drive scanners at arbitrary frequencies with different waveforms and produce appropriate horizontal and vertical syncs of arbitrary pulse width. Several programmable constants are provided to allow re-configurability. Additionally we show how very few essential components are required so the system could potentially be compacted to approximately the size of a cell phone.