Eye-safe Lidar Segmented Scanning for Far Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current LIDAR systems for autonomous vehicles face limitations in maximum illumination power due to eye safety regulations, which restrict their ability to reliably detect far-away objects across varying environmental conditions such as rain, fog, and darkness.
Innovation Solution
An electrooptical system with a processor-controlled light source that varies light flux over a scan of a field of view by sequentially illuminating non-contiguous segments, ensuring that other segments are not illuminated during or between illuminations, allowing for higher total illumination levels while maintaining eye safety.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the illumination power of LIDAR systems is increased to improve detection of far-away objects, then the detection capability is improved, but the eye safety requirement is violated
Solution Approach 1:
The field of view is divided into multiple non-contiguous segments that are illuminated sequentially rather than simultaneously. This segmentation allows the total illumination energy to be distributed across different spatial regions over time, enabling higher peak power in each segment while keeping the instantaneous exposure below eye safety thresholds.
Solution Approach 2:
The system employs periodic scanning to sequentially illuminate different segments of the field of view. By rapidly switching between segments in a periodic manner, the system accumulates sufficient total illumination energy for far-away object detection while ensuring that no single location receives excessive continuous exposure that would compromise eye safety.
2Length of moving object
If the light flux is increased to improve detection performance, then the detection range is extended, but the eye safety limit is exceeded
Solution Approach 1:
The detection field is segmented into multiple non-adjacent regions, each illuminated in sequence. This allows the system to concentrate higher light flux in individual segments during their illumination window, extending detection range for far-away objects, while the segmented temporal-spatial distribution ensures cumulative exposure remains within eye safety limits.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts the illumination pattern by sequentially activating different segments rather than maintaining uniform continuous illumination. This dynamic scanning approach enables higher peak flux levels in individual segments to achieve extended detection range, while the time-varying nature of illumination ensures safety compliance.
Data Source
AI summary
An electrooptical system may include a processor programmed to control a light source to enable light flux to vary over a scan of a field-of-view using light from the light source. The FOV may be divided into a plurality of segments, which may include a first set of non-contiguous segments, and each of the non-contiguous segments included in the first set may be separated from other non-contiguous segments in the first set by at least one segment. The scanning of the field-of-view may include sequentially illuminating the non-contiguous segments, which may proceed such that, during illumination of a particular non-contiguous segment in the first set of non-contiguous segments, other segments in the plurality of segments are not be illuminated, and such that other segments in the plurality of segments are not be illuminated between the illuminations of the non-contiguous segments in the first set of non-contiguous segments.