Coplanar laser illumination and imaging subsystem employing spectral-mixing and despeckling of laser illumination
First Claim
1. A coplanar laser illumination and imaging subsystem deployable in a digital image capturing and processing system, said coplanar laser illumination and imaging subsystem comprising:
- an image formation and detection (IFD) subsystem having an image sensing array and optics providing a field of view (FOV) on said image sensing array, and forming a digital image of an object within said FOV and detecting said digital image on said image sensing array and producing a digital image of said detected digital image;
a spectral-mixing based illumination subsystem having an array of visible laser diodes (VLDs) for producing a visible illumination beam, and an array of infrared (IR) laser diodes (LDs) for producing an invisible illumination beam, and wherein said visible and invisible illumination beams spatially overlap and spatially/temporally intermix 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 being substantially coplanar with the FOV of said image sensing array;
a laser despeckling mechanism for reducing the coherence of said composite spectrally-mixed illumination beam, and/or its components, so that said digital images produced by said IFD subsystem have substantially reduced levels of speckle-pattern noise when said laser despeckling mechanism is operational;
an image capturing and buffering subsystem for capturing and buffering digital images produced by said image sensing array; and
a control subsystem for controlling and/or coordinating the operations of said subsystems.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
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 reduced levels of speckle-pattern noise when the laser despeckling mechanism is operational.
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Citations
13 Claims
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1. A coplanar laser illumination and imaging subsystem deployable in a digital image capturing and processing system, said coplanar laser illumination and imaging subsystem comprising:
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an image formation and detection (IFD) subsystem having an image sensing array and optics providing a field of view (FOV) on said image sensing array, and forming a digital image of an object within said FOV and detecting said digital image on said image sensing array and producing a digital image of said detected digital image; a spectral-mixing based illumination subsystem having an array of visible laser diodes (VLDs) for producing a visible illumination beam, and an array of infrared (IR) laser diodes (LDs) for producing an invisible illumination beam, and wherein said visible and invisible illumination beams spatially overlap and spatially/temporally intermix 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 being substantially coplanar with the FOV of said image sensing array; a laser despeckling mechanism for reducing the coherence of said composite spectrally-mixed illumination beam, and/or its components, so that said digital images produced by said IFD subsystem have substantially reduced levels of speckle-pattern noise when said laser despeckling mechanism is operational; an image capturing and buffering subsystem for capturing and buffering digital images produced by said image sensing array; and a control subsystem for controlling and/or coordinating the operations of said subsystems. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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Specification