Laser Altimeter - 2005

The laser altimeter is designed for the BepiColombo mission to planet Mercury. For the laser altimeter we developed the Photodetector Electronics (PD) and the Return Pulse Digitization Electronics (RPDE).

The PD has the following major features:
[1] Avalanche Photo Diode (APD) with temperature sensor and high voltage (HV) APD power supply adjustment for the APD temperature compensation
[2] Discrete Transimpedance Amplifier (TIA)
[3] Variable Gain Amplifier (VGA) with digital serial interface

The RPDE, developed by ETH Integrated Systems Laboratory (IIS), has the following major features:
[1] Dual 500Msps low power ADC (1Gsps sampling capability) with input 6th order passive elliptic antialiasing filters
[2] FPGA for digitisation control of the return laser pulse.

The PD is shown below.