Patent · US Active

Coplanar laser illumination and imaging subsystem employing spectral-mixing and despeckling of laser illumination

US7661597B2 · kind B2 · utility

5Cited by
294References
13Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateOct 29, 2007
Grant dateFeb 16, 2010
Priority date
Expiry dateOct 29, 2027

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06K2207/1012
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A coplanar laser illumination and imaging subsystem deployable in an image capturing and processing system, and including an image formation and detection (IFD) subsystem having an image sensing array and optics providing a field of view (FOV) on the image sensing array, and forming an image of an object within the FOV and detecting said image on the image sensing array and producing a digital image thereof. The system includes a spectral-mixing based illumination subsystem having an array of VLDs for producing a visible illumination beam, and an array of infrared (IR) laser diodes (LDs) for producing an invisible illumination beam. The visible and invisible illumination beams spatially overlaps and spatially/temporally intermixes with each other to produce a composite spectrally-mixed illumination beam having a relative power ratio of visible illumination to invisible illumination (VIS/IR), and is substantially coplanar with the FOV of said image sensing array. A laser despeckling mechanism is provided for reducing the coherence of the composite spectrally-mixed illumination beam, and/or its components, so that the digital images produced by the IFD subsystem having substantially …

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.