A large-scale microelectromechanical-systems-based silicon photonics LiDAR

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) imaging sensors allow machines to perceive, map and interact with the surrounding world1. The size of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) devices is often limited by mechanical scanners. Focal plane array-based 3D sensors are promising candidates for solid-state LiDARs because they allow electronic scanning without mechanical moving parts. However, their resolutions have been limited to 512 pixels or smaller2. In this paper, we report on a 16,384-pixel LiDAR with a wide field of view (FoV, 70° × 70°), a fine addressing resolution (0.6° × 0.6°), a narrow beam divergence (0.050° × 0.049°) and a random-access beam addressing with sub-MHz operation speed. The 128 × 128-element focal plane switch array (FPSA) of grating antennas and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-actuated optical switches are monolithically integrated on a 10 × 11-mm2 silicon photonic chip, where a 128 × 96 subarray is wire bonded and tested in experiments. 3D imaging with a distance resolution of 1.7 cm is achieved with frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) ranging in monostatic configuration. The FPSA can be mass-produced in complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) foundries, which will allow ubiquitous 3D sensors for use in autonomous cars, drones, robots and smartphones.

Sensors and Sensor Fusion Methodologies for Indoor Odometry: A Review

“…Doppler LiDAR has the ability of long-range detection and radial velocity measurement; hence, it endows mobile platforms with better sensing capacity [ 239 , 240 ]. An MEMS Focal Plane Switch Array (FPSA) with wide FOV was recently proposed in [ 241 ], achieving better performance than current OPA LiDAR, and suitable for mass production in CMOS foundries.…”

Built-In Packaging for Single Terminal Devices

“…To illustrate the proposed packaging method for an actuator application, a m onator needed to be designed, and this design should be compatible with the a and characterization setups, and easy to fabricate and package. First, the importa ria were specified and then associated with geometrical and material properties Though only a single-terminal actuator application is illustrated in this work, the proposed concept is valid for sensor applications (accelerometer [14], gyroscope [15], mass sensor [16], humidity sensor [17], temperature sensor [18], pressure sensor [19], gas sensor [20], water sensor [21], magnetometers [22], photoacoustic sensors [23], FET-biosensor [24], and permittivity sensor [25]), optical and photonic applications (micromirror [26], microswitch [27], LiDAR [28], beam steering [29], bolometer [30], photon detector [31], and PeCOD [32]), RF applications (diode [33], transistor [34], antennas [35], switch [36], phase shifter [37], filter [38], and tunable capacitor [39]), microfluidics (micropump [40], microdroplet generator [41], and microvalve [42]), and other applications (energy harvester [43], rectenna [44], gripper [45], etc. ).…”

A full degree-of-freedom photonic crystal spatial light modulator

“…In the far-field (right), the corresponding shaded spatiotemporal bandwidth ν = Ωsωs = (λ/Λ) 2 ωs counts the controllable DoF per unit area and time in a single diffraction order. Trade-offs between ωs and Ωs in liquid crystal-(LC) [3,13,14], thermal- [15][16][17], micro-electro-mechanical system-(MEMS) [18][19][20][21][22], and electro-optic-driven (EO) [23][24][25][26] SLMs (b) limit ν Ωpωp, the accessible pixel bandwidth given the delay-limited bandwidth ωp ∼ ck∆ p/ . Spatiotemporal control is thus limited and scattering into undesired diffraction orders (grey ×s) reduces diffraction efficiency.…”

“…Various workarounds, including 1D phased arrays with transverse wavelength tunability [35,45,46], sparse antenna arrays [15], and switched arrays [22,47] improve steering performance but restrict the spatiotemporal ba-sis (i.e. limit F ).…”