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US 2022/0035011 A1Published application
Temporal jitter in a lidar system
AssigneeOuster, Inc.
InventorAngus PACALA
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A LIDAR system having light emitters and light detectors can apply per-shot jitter to create variation in the interval between successive emitter pulses. Operation of the detectors can be synchronized with operation of the emitters so that a consistent time of flight measurement corresponds to a consistent distance. Application of per-shot jitter can reduce the effect of crosstalk from other sources of pulsed light and can also reduce range aliasing effects.
Claims19
A LIDAR system comprising:
- a light transmission module having an emitter to emit a light pulse during each of a plurality of shots in response to a trigger pulse;
- a light sensing module having at least one light sensor channel to receive light and configured to generate, responsive to the trigger pulse, a histogram of received light intensity as a function of time for a sequence of time bins, the light sensing module further having a first memory circuit configured to accumulate the histogram across the plurality of shots;
- and
- a timing controller coupled to the light transmission module and the light sensing module and configured to generate a sequence of trigger pulses to synchronize operation of the light transmission module and the light sensing module for each shot,
- the timing controller being further configured to apply a per-shot jitter to each trigger pulse, wherein the per-shot jitter varies for different shots, and wherein, for at least some of the shots in the plurality of shots, the per-shot jitter is greater than one time bin.
2 more elements
A method of operating a LIDAR system, the method comprising:
- capturing a plurality of shots, wherein capturing each shot in the plurality of shots includes:
- determining a per-shot jitter;
- generating, in a timing controller of the LIDAR system, a trigger pulse at a time determined based at least in part on the per-shot jitter;
- operating a light-transmission module of the LIDAR system to emit a light pulse synchronized with the trigger pulse;
- and
- operating a light-sensing module of the LIDAR system synchronously with the trigger pulse to receive light and to accumulate a histogram of received light intensity as a function of time, the histogram defining a series of time bins, wherein the histogram is accumulated across the plurality of shots and wherein, for at least some of the shots in the plurality of shots, the per-shot jitter is greater than one time bin;
- and
- subsequently to capturing the plurality of shots, computing ranging information based at least in part on the histogram.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.