Lidar Systems

Fibertek designs and builds complete lidar systems and subsystems for a wide range of space, airborne, and defense applications including precision topographic mapping, target ranging, autonomous navigation, and planetary science. The company draws on decades of experience delivering flight-qualified laser systems to NASA and defense customers.

Fibertek’s lidar offerings span the full system stack: advanced laser transmitters, receiver subsystems, radiation-hardened electronics, signal processing algorithms, and mission planning and modeling support. This end-to-end capability allows the company to tailor solutions for specific orbital, airborne, or ground-based mission requirements.

A premier example of Fibertek’s lidar heritage is the ATLAS (Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System) developed for NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite. ATLAS uses 532 nm photon-counting lidar at 10 kHz pulse rate to measure ice sheet elevations with sub-decimeter accuracy from 500 km altitude, and has demonstrated extraordinary reliability with over two trillion laser shots fired on orbit — with a projected operational lifespan exceeding 17 years.

Fibertek also supports planetary science lidar missions and provides modeling and mission planning expertise to help customers optimize lidar performance before hardware commitment.