Flash Lidar with Adaptive Illumination

A flash light detection and ranging (lidar) system incorporated into a vehicle, comprising:

• a lidar transmitter incorporated into said vehicle, said lidar transmitter comprising a periodically modulated light source and a spatial light modulator (SLM), wherein an output light beam generated by said periodically modulated light source is reflected by said SLM prior to transmittance by said lidar transmitter, and wherein within a first field of view (FoV) corresponding to said lidar transmitter and within a single pulse of said periodically modulated light source said SLM generates a plurality of illumination zones of differing light intensity;
• a lidar receiver incorporated into said vehicle, said lidar receiver further comprising a sensor array, wherein light reflected by objects within a second FoV corresponding to said lidar receiver is captured by said sensor array;
• and
• a lidar processing system coupled to said lidar transmitter and to said lidar receiver, said lidar processing system configured to adapt said SLM to achieve a predetermined zone size and a predetermined light intensity for each illumination zone of said plurality of illumination zones generated by said SLM, and said lidar processing system configured to perform time of flight (ToF) measurements on data acquired by said sensor array.