Background light resilient flash lidar
US11579268B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Mar 30, 2020 |
| Grant date | Feb 14, 2023 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 26, 2041 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG01S17/10
- WIPO fieldMeasurement
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
LIDAR systems are less accurate in the presence of background light which can saturate the sensors in the LIDAR system. The embodiments herein describe a LIDAR system with a shutter synchronized to a laser source. During a first time period, the laser source is synched with the shutter so that the reflections are received when the shutter is in the process of changing between on and off states, during which time a function of the shutter (e.g., a phase retardation or opacity) monotonically changes so that reflections received at different times have different time-dependent characteristics (e.g., different polarizations). To mitigate the effects of background light, during a second time period, the laser source is synched with the shutter so that the background light is measured (in the absence of the reflections) which can be used to remove the effects of the background light from a range measurement.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.