Optical pulse clipper for lidar
AssigneeHuawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
InventorsDominic John Goodwill, Patrick Dumais
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Abstract
Aspects of the disclosure provide a system and method used for time-of-flight lidar applications. Such systems and methods include a laser and pulse clipper which produces a shuttering effect to reduce the instantaneous output power from the pulse clipper. Accordingly the output from the pulse clipper is more suitable for time-of-flight lidar applications than that initially produced by the laser. This can allow for lasers which may otherwise exceed eye safety limits to be used for time-of-flight lidar applications without exceeding the eye safety limits.
Claims26
A time-of-flight apparatus comprising:
- a laser configured to produce a laser pulse having a first peak power and first duration;
- and
- a pulse clipper for receiving the laser pulse from the laser, wherein the pulse clipper is configured to produce a clipped pulse from the laser pulse, wherein the clipped pulse has a second duration less than the first duration;
- wherein the clipped pulse has a second peak power during the second duration and wherein an instantaneous power of the clipped pulse at a moment of time after the second duration divided by the second peak power is smaller than an instantaneous power of the laser pulse at the moment of time after the second duration divided by the first peak power;
- and
- wherein the pulse clipper comprises an optical waveguide having an induced absorption region, the induced absorption region comprising a semiconductor having a bandgap energy.
A lidar system comprising:
- a transmitter;
- and
- a receiver;
- wherein
- the transmitter comprises:
- a laser configured to produce a laser pulse having a first peak power and a first duration;
- a pulse clipper for receiving the laser pulse from the laser, wherein the pulse clipper is configured to produce a clipped pulse from the laser pulse, wherein the clipped pulse has a second peak power during a second duration and wherein an instantaneous power of the clipped pulse at a moment of time after the second duration divided by the second peak power is smaller than an instantaneous power of the laser pulse at the moment of time after the second duration divided by the first peak power;
- and
- a beam steerer for steering the clipped pulse towards an external object;
- wherein the receiver is configured to receive a portion of the clipped pulse reflected from the external object;
- wherein the pulse clipper comprises an optical waveguide having an active region, the active region comprising a semiconductor having a bandgap energy.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.