Laser radar tracking system

Claim 1

A laser radar system with a common transmitter/receiver optical path consisting of an upper and lower section, the lower section being fixed and containing a laser beam generator and optical signal detector system with a beam splitter/reflector to combine or separate their respective beam paths and to direct the outgoing optical beam path into the upper section, said upper section being fully balanced to rotate about the vertical axis through an angle of approximately 360° with respect to the lower fixed section, and said upper section containing three movable reflectors at different heights to guide the beam path, a first one of said reflectors acting as a trackable, transmitter/receiver aperture, a second one of said reflectors being positioned off the vertical axis, and a third one of said reflectors being positioned lower than said first and second reflectors, and there is provided a fourth reflector positioned off the vertical axis and in line with and in the same plane as said second reflector but on the opposite side of the aperture reflector, which can be used in the optical path when tracking through zenith by flipping said aperture reflector and the third reflector through 180° from the positions they occupied prior to tracking through zenith, thus providing a continuous track without having to rotate the upper section of the laser radar system through an angle of 180°.