Hyper temporal lidar using multiple matched filters to determine target retro-reflectivity

A lidar method comprising:

• sensing incident light via an array of pixels, wherein the incident light includes a reflection of a laser pulse from a target within a field of view;
• applying a signal representative of the sensed incident light to a matched filter corresponding to a retro-reflective target that is tuned to a reflected pulse shape that exhibits a vertical clipping relative to a transmitted pulse shape for the laser pulse that is indicative of the retro-reflective target, wherein the matched filter is tuned according to a function that computes a minimum as between (1) a specified vertical clip level corresponding to a saturation threshold of at least one of the array of pixels or an analog-to-digital converter and (2) a reference pulse shape corresponding to the transmitted pulse shape;
• and
• determining a retro-reflector status for the target based on how the matched filter responds to the applied signal.

An article of manufacture for a lidar receiver, the article of manufacture comprising:

• machine-readable code that is resident on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, wherein the machine-readable code defines processing operations to be performed by a processor to cause the processor to:
• apply a signal to a matched filter corresponding to a retro-reflective target, wherein the applied signal is representative of incident light sensed by an array of pixels, wherein the incident light includes a reflection of a laser pulse from a target within a field of view for the lidar receiver, and wherein the matched filter is tuned to a reflected pulse shape that exhibits a vertical clipping relative to a transmitted pulse shape for the laser pulse that is indicative of the retro-reflective target, where the matched filter is tuned according to a function that computes a minimum as between (1) a specified vertical clip level corresponding to a saturation threshold of at least one of the array of pixels or an analog-to-digital converter and (2) a reference pulse shape corresponding to the transmitted pulse shape;
• and
• determine a retro-reflector status for the target based on how the matched filter responds to the applied signal.