Self-calibration adaptive lidar aperture building-block light engine

US11782139B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• The Regents of the University of Colorado, a Body Corporate · US

Inventors

• Kelvin Wagner · Boulder, US
• Daniel Feldkhun · Boulder, US
• Milos Popovic · Somerville, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Mar 28, 2019
• Grant date: Oct 10, 2023
• Expiry date: Apr 19, 2042

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G01S17/89
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A serpentine delay-line waveguide feeding an array of grating couplers can be fabricated in a silicon photonic chip, or tile, with the grating couplers emitting light at an angle that varies with wavelength and delay between the couplers imparted by the waveguide. The beam-steering tile can be used to transmit or receive light from a scene. The tile can be arrayed with one or more other tiles for bistatic radar-lidar operation. A tile in the array may transmit probe and frequency-shifted reference beams, while another tile may receive a return at a heterodyne frequency giving a range to the scene. The pitch of the serpentine delay line may be different for transmitting and receiving tiles to suppress returns from unwanted directions. Pairs of phase-cohered tiles may illuminate a spot in the scene with fringe patterns, producing oscillating returns that can be processed to form a high-resolution sub-image by Fourier synthesis.