Sold as a means of preventing police officers from measuring the speed of your vehicle, laser shifter systems are amazing feats of engineering. Laser-based speed measurement guns measure distances very accurately and very quickly. Police use these hand-held guns to pick out a single vehicle in heavy traffic and find out in a split second how fast it’s going. With no time to slow down, a laser shifter system is your only hope of not getting a ticket – assuming you are traveling above the speed limit.

How Do Police Laser Systems Work?

Police laser guns emit a series of narrowly focused light pulses at a target. The system measures the time it takes for those pulses to reflect back to the gun. Knowing the speed of light, the gun can calculate how far away the object is. If the series of pulses arrives back to the gun at an increasingly faster rate, the object is getting closer to the gun. If the time between pulse reflections is slower, the object is moving away. Using calculus (that math you learned in high school but never thought was necessary), the gun can calculate the vehicle speed, often in less than 0.3 of a second.

How Do Laser Defusers Work?

The laser defuser system uses a pair (or more) of transceivers on the front (and optionally the rear) of your vehicle to detect the light pulses from the laser gun. The transceivers have IR receivers that are similar to those used to detect signals from your TV remote control. As soon as the system detects a signal, it sets to work analyzing the pattern of pulses to determine what type of laser gun is being used. It compares the pattern to a look-up table and immediately starts broadcasting light pulses that are similar, but not identical, to those it received. This process happens in less time than it takes the gun to measure the vehicle speed. The pattern of confusing light signals and reflections from the vehicle prevents the laser gun from accurately determining your distance or speed.

How Do We Use Laser Defuser Systems?

The key to being able to continue driving without interruption lies in how your laser shifter system is used, more than what it does. As soon as the system detects a signal, you will receive an alert so that you can start to slow down. Once at a safe speed, you can cancel the shifted signal transmission and allow the officer to take a reading.

The speed at which you complete the “slow and cancel” process is crucial to your success. If you lollygag and drive past the officer with the laser signal shifted, he or she will know what you are up to and may choose to follow you.

A smooth but efficient application of the brakes to prevent the nose of the car or truck from dipping, then a subsequent tap on the Mute (or similar) button should take no more than a few seconds. The officer will likely be in the process of taking a second measurement of your vehicle and, if you’ve done your job, will get a reading that won’t raise an eyebrow.

Expert Installation Is Required

One final point we want to highlight is the importance of proper installation. Laser defusers, shifters, sensors, transceivers or whatever you choose to call them require very accurate installation. If they aren’t aligned perfectly and positioned according to manufacturer guidelines, the system may not function properly. Done wrong, your investment in protection will be rendered useless.

As with most premium automotive enhancements, choosing a retailer who has the tools, training and materials to complete the installation properly should take significant precedence over any other aspect of the project. Ask to see examples of their work and, if possible, have a look behind the scenes at how they mount components, run wiring and make connections. If it doesn’t look right to you, it probably isn’t.

Our team asks that you always obey all traffic laws and drive carefully at all times.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.

Police officers in North America have been using radar guns to catch speeders since 1949. This relatively simple technology evolved from military applications before World War II, where long-range installations were the size of a medium-size apartment building. Modern radar guns aren’t quite pocket-sized, but they are easily transportable and can be hand-held or installed permanently in a police vehicle. Let’s look at how a radar gun works.

How Does Speed-Detecting Radar Work?

In simple terms, a radar gun transmits a narrow beam of radio-frequency energy out the front of the gun and looks for that signal to be reflected back to the gun after bouncing off an object. Unlike lidar and laser guns, the speed measurement is calculated by how much the received signal has changed in frequency after reflecting off the moving object. This phenomenon is called a Doppler effect and is the same reason that a car sounds different as it approaches and drives away from you.

Please Explain Doppler Effect to Me!

Imagine that you have a tennis ball machine shooting balls at a stationary object once every second. The balls bounce back to the machine and arrive once per second. If you start to move the object toward the ball launching machine, the balls bounce back faster and faster as the object approaches the machine. This increase in return speed represents an increase in frequency.

If an object is moving away from the tennis ball machine, it will take longer for each ball to bounce back, thus representing a decrease in frequency. The digital signal processor in modern radar guns is configured to analyze the changes in the reflected signal very quickly and display a speed reading in less than a second.

Different Radar Bands

In North America, police officers use radar guns that operate in the X, K and Ka band frequency ranges. X band is the oldest technology and operates between 8 and 12 GHz; the K band is between 18 and 27 GHz; and the Ka band is between 27 and 40 GHz. X band radar is prone to interference from automatic door opening systems. K band (K is short for Kurz, which is the German word for short) and Ka (K-above band) radar are less resistant to atmospheric absorption than X band and less effective over long distances. Most of the new radar guns such as the Stalker II and the Kustom Talon use Ka band signals, so if your detector goes off, you know you need to react right away.

Radar Detectors Provide Early Warnings

Unlike lidar, the radar signal isn’t as precise at long distances, allowing it to spread well beyond the vehicle being measured. The high-sensitivity radar receiver in a radar detector is tuned to pick up extremely low-level signals and alert you that radar is in use. You need to act quickly when a radar detector goes off. Your local specialist mobile enhancement retailer can help you choose the perfect portable or custom-installed radar for your application and ensure that the system is installed cleanly. Drop by and find out what’s available today!

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.

If you’ve ever driven past a speed trap or, worse, received a speeding ticket from a law enforcement officer using a laser gun, you may be curious about how these systems work. Also called a lidar gun, these speed measuring devices are not only very accurate, but they work quickly and reliably to let an officer know how fast you are traveling.

What Is Lidar?

Invented in early 1960s, lidar (which is short for LIght Detection And Ranging) was designed to measure distances. Lidar devices transmit a series of infrared light pulses that are focused into a beam toward an object. The system measures how long it takes for that pulse to reflect back to the laser receiver (a second lens on the front of the device). Knowing that light travels at a speed of 186,000 miles per second, the computer in the device can calculate how far away an object is, based on how long it took each the pulse of light to return.

The first practical application for lidar was when the National Center for Atmospheric Research used it to measure clouds. In 1971, the crew on the Apollo 15 mission used a laser altimeter to create a map of the moon’s surface.

How Police Laser Works

Police laser guns use a series of pulses to calculate speed. If the operator points the gun at a stationary object, each pulse takes the same amount of time to reflect back to the gun. The system compares these reflection times and looks for a change. When there is no change, the unit will display an object speed of 0 mph.

If the time it takes for each pulse to return is decreasing, the gun knows the object is moving toward the operator. If the reflection time is increasing, then the object is moving away from the operator. The rate of change of signal reflection time is used to determine the speed at which the object is approaching (or moving away from) the operator.

While this sounds complicated, most lidar guns can perform these calculations extremely quickly, often in 0.3 to 0.35 seconds. This incredible speed makes it impossible for a driver to slow down before the officer knows how fast he or she is driving.

Police Lidar Accuracy

After inspecting the specification sheets from companies like Stalker Radar, Kustom Signals and DragonEye Technology, most laser measurement systems are rated to provide a beam width of about 2.5 to 3 feet at a distance of 1,000 feet. This accuracy allows a police officer to select a single vehicle for measurement, even in dense traffic.

In terms of speed accuracy, all of the above manufacturers claim that the speed measurement is within 1 mile per hour. Though perhaps irrelevant for a discussion of policing, most laser (and radar) guns have a maximum measuring speed of about 180 to 200 miles per hour.

Why Is It Difficult to Jam Lidar?

Laser or lidar jammers try to detect the pulses of light from the officer’s gun and determine the pattern being used. Once they detect the pattern, they transmit a similar series of laser pulses that are intended to confuse the gun and prevent an accurate reading. Laser jammer manufacturers are always working on software updates to support the newest anti-jamming technologies.

Protect Yourself with a Laser Jammer Today

If you are interested in learning about the technologies that are available for your car or truck to prevent officers from using laser guns to measure your speed, drop by your local specialist mobile enhancement retailer today. They can explain the solutions they carry and how they can install them on your vehicle. As always, we ask that you drive safely and obey all traffic laws on your next adventure or commute.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.