Actuated spinning sensor

An actuated sensor system to generate transformed sensor information, comprising:

• a sensor that is a spinning LIDAR and that spins about a sensor axis;
• a mount including an offset portion, which extends laterally from a rotation axis about which the mount is configured to rotate, and a support portion, which extends from the offset portion to support the sensor and orient the sensor axis at a non-zero inclination angle relative to the rotation axis;
• a stabilizer including a two-axis gimbal configured to prevent the support portion from rotating along with the mount and to provide a pivot fulcrum for the support portion of the mount to precess about the rotation axis;
• a rotator configured to rotate the mount about the rotation axis, to cause the sensor axis to precess about the rotation axis at the inclination angle;
• and
• an encoder configured to identify a mount rotation angle about the rotation axis;
• and
• a controller configured to transform uncompensated sensor information, as a function of the mount rotation angle and the inclination angle, into transformed sensor information;
• wherein the sensor includes an array of emitters to generate a plurality of beams associated with a beam divergence angle between adjacent beams, and wherein the mount is configured to provide the inclination angle greater than or equal to half the beam divergence angle.

A method to generate transformed sensor data, comprising:

• acquiring, from an encoder of an actuator, a mount rotation angle corresponding to rotation of a mount about a rotation axis, the mount being configured to support a sensor that is a spinning LIDAR and that spins about a sensor axis oriented relative to the rotation axis by an inclination angle;
• acquiring, from a data packet generated by the sensor, uncompensated sensor information;
• transforming the uncompensated sensor information into transformed sensor data based on the mount rotation angle and a sensor offset corresponding to a distance along the sensor axis from a sensor receiver to an intersection of the rotation axis and the sensor axis;
• generating composite sensor output based on the transformed sensor data, wherein the composite sensor output includes a composite resolution greater than an uncompensated native resolution of the sensor;
• and
• rotating the mount about the rotation axis to cause the sensor axis to precess about the rotation axis at the inclination angle;
• wherein the sensor includes an array of emitters to generate a plurality of beams associated with a beam divergence angle between adjacent beams, and wherein the mount is configured to provide the inclination angle greater than or equal to half the beam divergence angle.