| Abstract: | The probability of detection of optically rough targets with pulsed LADAR systems that use direct detection is considered. It is assumed that the LADAR operates under conditions of both unintentional pointing offset bias (i.e., bore-sight error) andjitter. Under these conditions the probabilities of detection of targets in both the near field and the far field of the collecting aperture (i.e., for resolved, partially resolved, and unresolved targets) and for both large and small photoelectron counts are derived, and in many cases of practical interest accurate, elementary analytic approximations that are useful for parametric system studies are obtained. A number of technical references are appended, in which some of the key results are derived. In particular, an interesting new mathematical result involving the complementary incomplete gamma function and an analytic expression for the probability distribution function of a signal photoelectron count obeying BoseEinstein statistics (such as that arising from unresolved targets) immersed in Poisson noise is derived. |
