Adaptive Ladar Receiver
First Claim
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1. A ladar receiver apparatus comprising:
- an array comprising a plurality of light sensors, each light sensor configured to sense light that is indicative of a plurality of ladar pulses reflected from a plurality of range points and generate a signal indicative of the sensed light; and
a circuit in communication with the array, the circuit configured to (1) selectively define a plurality of subsets of the light sensors for read out at a given time to produce a signal representative of the sensed light, the produced signal for use in computing range information with respect to the range points.
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Abstract
Disclosed herein are various embodiment of an adaptive ladar receiver and associated method whereby the active pixels in a photodetector array used for reception of ladar pulse returns can be adaptively controlled based at least in part on where the ladar pulses were targeted. Additional embodiments disclose improved imaging optics for use by the receiver and further adaptive control techniques for selecting which pixels of the photodetector array are used for sensing incident light.
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Citations
58 Claims
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1. A ladar receiver apparatus comprising:
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an array comprising a plurality of light sensors, each light sensor configured to sense light that is indicative of a plurality of ladar pulses reflected from a plurality of range points and generate a signal indicative of the sensed light; and a circuit in communication with the array, the circuit configured to (1) selectively define a plurality of subsets of the light sensors for read out at a given time to produce a signal representative of the sensed light, the produced signal for use in computing range information with respect to the range points. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55)
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56. An apparatus comprising:
a ladar receiver that includes a multi-pixel light sensor and a read out integrated circuit (ROIC) configured to read out signals sensed by each of a plurality of the pixels and process the read out signals, wherein the ROIC includes a multiplexer configured to selectively switch between the pixels for sensed signal read out. - View Dependent Claims (57)
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58. A system comprising:
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a ladar transmitter comprising a plurality of scanable mirrors, the ladar transmitter configured to (1) for each of a plurality of frames, select a subset of range points within a frame per frame, (2) selectively scan the scanable mirrors to target the selected range points for each frame, and (3) transmit a plurality of ladar pulses toward the targeted range points via the scanned mirrors; and a ladar receiver comprising; an array comprising a plurality of light sensors, each light sensor configured to sense light that is indicative of a plurality of ladar pulses reflected from the targeted range points and generate a signal indicative of the sensed light; a signal processing circuit; and a multiplexer in communication with the array and the signal processing circuit, wherein the multiplexer is configured to selectively connect a plurality of the light sensors with the signal processing circuit in response to a control signal such that the multiplexer passes the signal generated by each selectively connected light sensor to the signal processing circuit; wherein the signal processing circuit is configured to amplify and convert the provided signals into a plurality of digital samples for processing to compute range information with respect to the targeted range points.
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Specification