Hyper Temporal Lidar with Controllable Pulse Bursts to Resolve Angle to Target

Abstract

A lidar system can include a lidar transmitter and a lidar receiver, where the lidar transmitter controllably transmits a pulse burst toward a target in a field of view and where the lidar receiver resolves an angle to the target based on returns from the pulse burst. The pulse burst can include a first pulse fired at a first shot angle and a second pulse fired at a second shot angle.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE AND PRIORITY CLAIM TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATIONS[0001]This patent application claims priority to U.S. provisional patent application 63 / 209,179, filed Jun. 10, 2021, and entitled “Hyper Temporal Lidar with Controllable Pulse Bursts”, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.[0002]This patent application also claims priority to U.S. provisional patent application 63 / 186,661, filed May 10, 2021, and entitled “Hyper Temporal Lidar with Controllable Detection Intervals”, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.[0003]This patent application also claims priority to U.S. provisional patent application 63 / 166,475, filed Mar. 26, 2021, and entitled “Hyper Temporal Lidar with Dynamic Laser Control”, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.[0004]This patent application is related to (1) U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, filed this same day, and entitled “Hyper Temporal Lidar with Pulse Burst...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The invention is about a way to make sure that a laser beam has enough energy to work properly in a tool called a lidar transmitter. The invention uses a model to predict the energy needs of each laser pulse and makes sure that each laser beam has enough energy to meet its needs. This helps the lidar transmitter to reliably work even when there are lots of laser pulses being fired simultaneously. The invention also describes using a special technique to control the energy levels in the laser pulses to make sure that they are consistent and equal.

Problems solved by technology

However, as the firing rate for the lidar transmitter increases, this places pressure on the operational capabilities of the laser source employed by the lidar transmitter because the laser source will need re-charging time.

This issue becomes particularly acute in situations where the lidar transmitter has a variable firing rate.

Such laser sources have energy characteristics that are heavily impacted by time and the firing rate of the laser source.

Counterintuitively, the inventors have found that it is often not desirable for a detection interval to be of the same duration as its corresponding shot interval due to factors such as the amount of processing time that is needed to detect returns within return signals.

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