More iRobot LADAR details

iRobot's new hometown paper, the Bedford Minuteman, profiles the company's new laser alliance with Advanced Scientific Concepts at this link.

New details:

Lasting only 20 nanoseconds, the lasers cannot be seen by standard cameras or by night vision, making them “very stealthy,” Stettner said. The LADAR takes only one shot, but when the light comes back to the camera, it is sampled 20 times to render a 3-D video image.
“These robots can use this kind of vision system to negotiate the world,” Stettner said.
The Flash LADAR system is capable of seeing two kilometers, with a resolution of about 3 centimeters throughout the whole 128x128 array. Preliminary plans are to equip PackBots and Humvees with the cameras, while Greiner mentioned potential commercial uses in agriculture.

Slashdot also noted the technology, and the message thread is definitely worth reading here. (Thx, jsrn, wealjays).
Part of one post:

This is a big step forward. I know this technology. Back in 2004, when we were putting our DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle together, I went down to Advanced Scientific Concepts in Santa Barbara to see the thing. Back then, they had a prototype that worked, but it was on an optical bench (one of those big plates with screw holes to which you attach optical components), nowhere near ready to go on a vehicle. It was just too early. ...
ASC kept working, and by 2006 they had working portable prototypes. By 2007, you could buy a LIDAR about the size of a large-format camera for about $100,000. Now they've downsized it further.
Unlike the laser scanners with spinning mirrors or sensors, which is what everyone else uses, this technology has no moving parts. The system has two main components - a pulse laser with diffusing optics, and a detection and timing IC with one LIDAR receiver per pixel. Neither of these is inherently expensive in quantity. It may take a while to get this down to webcam prices, but $1000 is a reasonable near-term target.
...
This is the sensor that will make automatic driving commercially feasible.