Optical coherence tomography system for ranging applications

Abstract

A Swept-Source Optical Coherence Tomography (SS-OCT) system (100) comprising a light source (105) configured to generate a coherent light signal, an optical interferometer (110) configured to divide the coherent light signal into a reference forward signal directed to a reference arm (110R) of the optical interferometer leading to a reference reflector (R) and into a sample forward signal directed to a sample arm (110S) of the optical interferometer leading to a sample (S) including at least one sample reflector, an optical detector (115) configured to detect an interference signal generated by a combination of a reference return signal returning from the reference arm after reflection by the reference reflector and a sample return signal returning from the sample arm after reflection by the sample, and a processing unit (125). The processing unit is configured to determine an approximated interference signal associated with the sample as a combination of a number of functions of a dictionary of functions. Said number of functions is equal to a number of said at least one sample reflector. Each function in the dictionary of functions describes the interference signal as a sinusoidal function having amplitude and argument respectively associated with reflectivity and position information, the arguments of the sinusoidal functions comprising a plurality of phase components independent of an optical absolute frequency of the coherent light signal. Each function of said number of functions is associated with a respective one of said at least one sample reflector and is selected from said dictionary of functions to minimize a difference between the interference signal and the approximated interference signal. The processing unit is also configured to determine at least one between reflectivity and position associated with one or more of the at least one sample reflector based on the reflectivity and position information of the selected functions the combination of which determines the approximated interference signal.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.