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Laser rangefinders in geo-referencing and target location systems

Range alone locates nothing. The moment you combine it with attitude and position, the trigger timing and the error budget become the design problem.

Timestamp the emission, not the receipt

If the platform moves, a range stamped at receipt time is wrong by the platform's motion over the round trip plus processing latency. A module with a discrete trigger pulse lets you time the emission; that is worth more than a faster interface.

Error budget

At 5 km, a 0.3 mrad pointing error is 1.5 m of lateral miss: larger than the rangefinder's ±2 m. Attitude, boresight and target size dominate. Ask for the module's range error, then compute the total; do not buy accuracy you cannot use.

Which module

Long-range 1535 nm parts for vehicle-sized targets at 10–23 km, mid-range for 3–8 km, and a 905 nm part if the platform needs kilohertz updates more than reach.

Modules that fit this application

Shortlist is a starting point, not a recommendation — the right module depends on target, visibility and pointing error. Filter the full matrix.