US 12,704,601 B2 · Mirrorless solid state LiDAR

Abstract

A mirrorless light detection and ranging (LiDAR) device does not include any microelectromechanical system (MEMS) mirror. Instead, the LiDAR device uses a shifting device to shift a lens array or a laser beam emitting unit, or uses shifting devices to shift both a lens array and a laser beam emitting unit to cause relative motion between the laser beam emitting unit and the lens array. The laser beam emitting unit is a modularized component that includes multiple layers of submount-based edge emitting lasers (EELs) stacked in a staircase manner. Each time the lens array or the laser beam emitting unit changes position, the EELs are activated, one at a time, in a zigzagging sequence across the multiple layers to emit laser beams, with the laser beams emitted from an activation sequence filling up gaps between laser beams emitted from a previous activation sequence. A dynamic spatial filter including segmented areas with a one-to-one correspondence to the EELs in the laser beam emitting unit can be used to reduce noise.

Claims16

Dependent claims

A computer-implemented method of emitting laser beams from a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) device, comprising:

shifting, by a shifting device, a laser beam emitting unit orthogonally to an optical axis of a lens array positioned in an optical path of the laser beam emitting unit from a first position to a second position, wherein the shifting device is coupled to the laser beam emitting unit, wherein the laser beam emitting unit includes a plurality of submount-based edge emitting lasers (EELs) arranged in a plurality of layers in a staircase manner, wherein each lower layer is displaced by a distance d, wherein d=L/m, wherein L is a width of a submount-based EEL plus a gap between neighboring EELs in a layer, and m is a number of the plurality of layers;
and
activating the plurality of submount-based EELs in a same predetermined activation sequence, one at a time, to emit a plurality of linear laser beams at each of the first position and the second position, wherein each of the plurality of linear laser beams is emitted by one of the plurality of submount-based EELs, and is configured to be incident on a corresponding set of photodetectors in a light detector.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Mirrorless solid state LiDAR

Life of this patent

Mirrorless solid state LiDAR

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims16