Active Optical Sensing and Communication

This talk will explore various aspects of active optical sensing systems such as LIDAR as well as free-space optical communications. Emphasis will be placed on engineering challenges of deploying such instruments to the field, paying special attention to the impact of obscurants, turbulence, and interfaces on system performance.

Professor Tim Kane received his B.S. (1987), M.S. (1989), and Ph.D. (1992) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois-Urbana. Currently he is an Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering and Meteorology at Pennsylvania State University. He is also a Senior Research Associate in Penn State’s Applied Research Laboratory. He works in the field of Optical Remote Sensing, with an emphasis on Laser Radar (or Lidar). His emphasis on optical propagation has also instigated current efforts in free-space optical communication as well as imaging. In addition to the design, development, and deployment of such instrumentation, he has current research interests in modeling of ionospheric, atmospheric, and oceanic dynamics and Chemical processes.