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AssigneeCepton Technologies, Inc.
InventorsSi Tan, Liqun Han, Chang Seok Shin, Jun Pei, Mark A. McCord, Chusheng Qiu
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Distinct lines of illumination produced by first and second lasers are swept across a field of view using a scanning mirror, illuminating the field of view with a known time delay. The second laser may be physically offset by a fractional pixel distance relative to the first laser. Reflections from the field of view are detected by corresponding detectors, and a processing unit can interleave pixels generated from the distinct illuminations to create a higher-resolution combined point cloud. A pixel-by-pixel radial velocity can be calculated based on a change in radial distance between corresponding pixels over the known time delay. Edge artifacts, such as anomalies caused by laterally moving objects, are detected and filtered by comparing the pixel-level radial velocities to a predefined threshold limit. The remaining valid pixels can then be grouped into recognized objects to calculate a velocity of the object.
A system for lidar comprising:
The system of claim, wherein the processing unit is further configured to:
The system of claim, wherein the processing unit is further configured to group remaining pixels sharing a similar pixel-level radial velocity into a recognized object.
The system of claim, wherein the processing unit is further configured to calculate a transverse velocity of the recognized object by tracking a center or an edge of the recognized object.
The system of claim, wherein the second laser is physically offset by a fractional pixel distance relative to the first laser.
The system of claim, wherein the fractional pixel distance is offset in a vertical direction.
A method for measuring velocity using a lidar system, the method comprising:
The method of claim, further comprising:
The method of claim, further comprising grouping remaining pixels sharing a similar pixel-level radial velocity into a recognized object representation.
The method of claim, wherein the similarity in pixel-level radial velocity is established as a function of a noise floor of a velocity estimation process, such that spatially adjacent pixels exhibiting a radial velocity differential below a minimum detectable velocity are associated with the recognized object.
The method of claim, further comprising calculating a transverse velocity of the recognized object by tracking a change in position of a center or an edge of the recognized object.
The method of claim, wherein the edge artifact comprises a measurement anomaly caused by a transverse-moving object detected by the first pixel and missed by the corresponding second pixel.
The method of claim, further comprising identifying a target pixel exhibiting a radial velocity that deviates from the radial velocities of its immediate lateral or vertical spatial neighbors by an amount exceeding a predetermined spatial disparity threshold.
The method of claim, further comprising adjusting a timing of a second laser pulse relative to a first laser pulse such that a location in the field of view is offset by a fraction of a pixel.
The method of claim, wherein the second laser is physically offset by a fractional pixel distance relative to the first laser.
The method of claim, wherein:
The method of claim, further comprising calculating a reference velocity using a weighted average of a plurality of neighboring pixels to ascertain if a target pixel constitutes noise.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a lidar system, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim, wherein a timing of the second illumination is adjusted so a location in the field of view is offset by a fraction of pixel relative to the first illumination.
The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim, the operations further comprising, interleaving pixels generated by the second illumination between pixels generated by the first illumination to generate a point cloud.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.