Fast scanning lidar with dynamic voxel probing
OwnerGerard Dirk Smitsinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A LIDAR system includes a scanner; a receiver; and one or more processor devices to perform actions, including: scanning a continuous light beam over the field of view in a first scan pass; detecting photons of the continuous light beam that are reflected from one or more objects; determining a coarse range to the one or more objects based on times of departure of the photons of the continuous light beam and times of arrival of the photons at the receiver; scanning light pulses over the field of view in a second scan pass; detecting photons from the light pulses that are reflected from the one or more objects; and determining a refined range to the one or more objects based on times of departure of the photons of the light pulses and times of arrival of the photons at the receiver.
Claims20
A method for measuring a range of one or more objects, the method comprising:
- employing one or more scanners to scan a continuous light beam and a pulsed light beam at the one or more objects;
- employing the continuous light beam reflected by the one or more objects to determine a coarse range between the one or more scanners and the one or more objects;
- employing pulses of the light beam reflected by the one or more objects to determine a refined range between the one or more scanners and the one or more objects;
- and
- redetermining the refined range based on one or more subsequent reflected pulses of the light beam generated by other pulsed of light beam scans at the one or more objects.
A system to measure a range of one or more objects, comprising:
- one or more memory devices that store instructions;
- and
- one or more processor devices that execute the stored instructions to perform actions, including:
- employing one or more scanners to scan a continuous light beam and a pulsed light beam at the one or more objects;
- employing the continuous light beam reflected by the one or more objects to determine a coarse range between the one or more scanners and the one or more objects;
- employing pulses of the light beam reflected by the one or more objects to determine a refined range between the one or more scanners and the one or more objects;
- and
- redetermining the refined range based on one or more subsequent reflected pulses of the light beam generated by other pulsed of light beam scans at the one or more objects.
A non-transitory processor readable storage media that includes instructions for measuring a range to one or more objects, wherein execution of the instructions by one or more processor devices cause the one or more processor devices to perform actions, comprising:
- employing one or more scanners to scan a continuous light beam and a pulsed light beam at the one or more objects;
- employing the continuous light beam reflected by the one or more objects to determine a coarse range between the one or more scanners and the one or more objects;
- employing pulses of the light beam reflected by the one or more objects to determine a refined range between the one or more scanners and the one or more objects;
- and
- redetermining the refined range based on one or more subsequent reflected pulses of the light beam generated by other pulsed of light beam scans at the one or more objects.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.