Laser Radars are broadly adopted in the automatic pilot field and industrial fields. The outlook of this application is very optimistic. A few of these laser radars can rotate in 360-degree, which are known as mechanical laser radars, might demand electrical slip rings or fiber optic rotary joints to support signal and power transmission. Since radar manufacturers might adopt different technical routings, there are diverse demands of the slip ring components being applied. Some favors electrical slip rings and others, the fiber optic slip rings.
There is a certain feature of the laser radars in today’s market, that is the band wave of most of them match those of the fiber optic rotary joints. This feature facilitates the rotary transmission of laser radars. For example, most JINPAT fiber optic rotary joints support transmission of signal range from 650nm to 1650nm, only part of small size slip rings support signal with band wave from 850nm to 1550nm. This band wave range covers those of the mainstream laser radars.
Generally speaking, the data generated by the mechanical laser radar is not very big, and the transmission distance is relatively short. As a result, a single channel multi-mode fiber optic rotary joint is sufficient. There are several advantages of using fiber optic slip ring to transmit signals. The first one is it has a perfect match with the band wave of the laser radar. Secondly, fiber optic rotary joint enjoys a long service life, reaching up to 100,000,000 revolutions which perfectly fits the low-maintenance demand of laser radars.
Power transmission is a piece of cake for fiber optic slip rings. Compared with fiber optic rotary joints, traditional opto-electronic integrated slip rings are less competitive in terms of service life. Besides, the latter solution might take up larger space, which surely will affect the stability of the laser radar during operation. And to be fair, wireless transmission solution is best for laser radars since the total power of a mechanical radar is no more than several tens of watt.