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US 2026/0267000 A1Published application
Eye Safe Lidar
AssigneeMicrovision, Inc.
InventorsRejin Joy, Christopher Cannon
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a laser light source, optical devices forming a fanned beam, and scanning mirrors for a two-dimensional scan pattern. The system enhances eye safety by spacing overlapping laser pulses, with pixel matching in an arrayed receiver to ensure precise time-of-flight measurements. Other embodiments are disclosed.
Claims20
A light detection and ranging system, comprising:
- a laser light source to produce laser light pulses;
- at least one optical device to form the laser light pulses into a fanned beam, where the fanned beam that diverges more on a first axis than on a second axis;
- a first scanning mirror assembly to scan the fanned beam on the first axis and the second axis and along a scanning trajectory to generate a two-dimensional scan pattern over a field of view such that each laser light pulse in the fanned beam impacts the scanning trajectory at a plurality of measurement points along the second axis of the fanned beam;
- an arrayed receiver that includes a plurality of light sensitive devices;
- a second scanning mirror assembly to scan on the first axis and the second axis and direct reflections of the fanned beam from the plurality of measurement points along the second axis of the fanned beam onto the plurality of light sensitive devices of the arrayed receiver;
- and
- a control circuit to match measurement points to the plurality of light sensitive devices of the arrayed receiver for successive ones of the laser light pulses.
4 more elements
A system comprising:
- a laser light source to produce eye safe laser light pulses to illuminate a plurality of measurement points in a field of view;
- at least one optical device to form the eye safe laser light pulses into a fanned beam, wherein each laser light pulse in the fanned beam illuminates a different subset of the plurality of measurement points, and wherein subsets of the plurality of measurement points for successive laser light pulses overlap;
- a first scanning mirror assembly to scan the fanned beam on two axes and along a scanning trajectory to generate a two-dimensional scan pattern over a field of view that includes the plurality of measurement points;
- an arrayed receiver that includes a plurality of light sensitive devices;
- a second scanning mirror assembly to scan on the two axes and direct reflections of the fanned beam onto the plurality of light sensitive devices of the arrayed receiver;
- and
- a control circuit to match overlapping measurement points to the plurality of light sensitive devices of the arrayed receiver for the successive laser light pulses.
4 more elements
A method comprising:
- producing a pulsed beam of laser light;
- forming the pulsed beam of laser light into a fanned beam having a wider divergence on a first axis than on a second axis;
- scanning the pulsed beam of laser light on the first axis and the second axis in a field of view such that the fanned beam illuminates a plurality of measurement points in the field of view;
- receiving a reflection of the fanned beam and imaging the reflection onto an arrayed receiver with a plurality of light sensitive devices;
- and
- determining which light sensitive devices correspond to different measurement points for successive laser light pulses in the pulsed beam of laser light.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.