Active night vision system for vehicles employing short-pulse laser illumination and a gated camera for image capture

A method of detecting objects with a night vision system having a light source and a camera, the method comprising:

• activating said light source in the form of a sequence of constant intensity light pulses to form a pulse train;
• and
• activating said camera in the form of a corresponding sequence of detection windows wherein each of said windows corresponds to one of said light pulses for receiving reflected light resulting from said corresponding light pulse and wherein each detection window has an increasing gain throughout said pulse train and a time delay between each corresponding light pulse and detection window is increasing throughout said pulse train.

A method of detecting objects with a night vision system having a light source and a camera, the method comprising:

• activating said light source in the form of a plurality of constant intensity light pulses to form a pulse train;
• and
• activating said camera in the form of a plurality of detection windows throughout said pulse train for receiving reflected light resulting from said corresponding light pulses and wherein a time delay between each subsequent detection window is increasing throughout said pulse train, said light pulses and detection windows being configured such that objects nearer the night vision system are imaged by fewer light pulses than objects further away from said night vision system.