The IASDL is located in the Iowa Advanced Technologies Laboratory (IATL) room 290. Focused on prototyping new remote sensing instruments, Professor McGill’s lab is fully equipped to handle development, alignment, and testing of optical sensors. The lab is outfitted as a cleanroom and can be operated as a Class 10,000 cleanroom when needed.  

Assembly and alignment of optical sensors, both active and passive, requires specialized capability and metrology equipment. A primary piece of equipment is the Davidson 16” reflective collimator, which is essential for use in aligning large optical sensors. Collimators are optical devices used to replicate a target focused at infinity. The collimator produces a parallel (i.e., “collimated”) beam of light that can be used to test the optimal imaging quality of an optical sensor. For lidar sensors, use of a collimator is essential for ensuring proper co-alignment of transmit and receive beams. 

Other equipment in the lab includes

• Moeller-Wendle autocollimator;
• Davidson D-275 autocollimator;
• precision wavemeter;
• test/alignment lasers;
• laser power meters;
• laminar flow bench;
• cameras/image capture system; and
• myriad electronic test equipment (power supplies, function generators, etc).

In addition, there are other on-site test capabilities if they should be needed. The University has separate on-site testing capability for vibration, thermal testing, and vacuum testing. These facilities can be utilized as needed to test components and instruments.