Hi Matt,

as you may already know, we bought our camera from InfraTec. I think the camera itself has almost the same specifications. However to increase the sensitifity we chose the greatest entrance lens that was available. In our case the lens diameter is 120 mm, while the field of view is 8 x 6 degree. I would not recommend to increase the field of view, because you are loosing sensitifity and resolution. We would prefer to have an even narrower field of view to reduce false alarm. But that is probably also depending on the applied object detection algorithm. Unfortunately i only know the price for the camera including the lens. It starts from ~29k, with some extras like low-noise-detector and increased resolution (1024x768) we ended up at almost 40k.
The cameras that you found look promising. With 60 Hz they provide an even higher frame rate. It would be nice to hear the price.

Best regards,
Johann

<!--                                                                                                           -->Hi Toshi,

to my understanding you are right in all of your points. However, i think there is a bit more than MPE.
Lasers are usually categorized in laser classes. The MPE is similar to laser class 1M, which is safe to the naked eye.
However, if you want an eyesafe laser you have to fullfill the requirements of class 1 (532: max .3,8e-8J in 50 mm Aperture; 1064: max. 3,8e-7J in 50 mm Aperture).
I think the difference between class 1 and 1M is that a class 1 laser is even safe, when using optics with an aperture of up to 50 mm.
ANSI Z 136.1 and i think also IEC 60825 define the requirement for the specific laser classes (enclosures, warning devices, ...).
Finally you also have to take into account the repetition rate of the laser system, which reduces the MPE by a factor of N^-0,25
if the repetition rate is above 600 Hz (IEC 60825-1:2014 p.28).

Concerning the numbers in (A):
Of course it is difficult (impossible) to get eyesafe, or class 1, with a bistatic (small transmitt telescope) SLR-system using picosecond pulse-width.
What our colleagues in Stuttgart do is to use nanosecond pulses to reach class 1M.

To point (B):
I think John meant the "eye-closure reflex", which "should" occure when bright light is seen.
It is assumed that the human eye is closed after a timespan of 0,25 seconds in that case.
Obviously only lasers emitting in the visible spectrum can be categorized in class 2.
I think this laser class is important for lasers with emission duration of more than 0,25 seconds only, not for our ps-lasers.

In Wettzell we are currently working on increasing the repetition rate of the WLRS to 400 Hz. We want to use the whole telescope aperture for
laser beam transmission and we want to switch to 1064 nm. By doing so we are class 1M up to a single pulse energy of 400µJ with our 10 ps laser.
Recently, we received first light from ETALON1 with an echo rate of about 5%. The approach seems promissing at the moment, we will see whats happening ...


Hopefully i am right with all this stuff, i am slowly getting confused ... ;-)

Johann