An experimental timing system is described that modifies the laser pulse characteristics shot-to-shot for a semiconductor-laser-based lidar system. An example is explored where the modification of laser pulse length allows for the system to reduce its minimum observable range by alternating relatively narrow pulses (on the order of 10-200 ns) with relatively wide laser pulses (on the order of 1 µs) to maintain sufficient average power to see at long ranges. This effectively creates a low- and high-gain receiver configuration with identical optical alignment properties without adding any optical components.
Stillwell et al. (Thu,) studied this question.