Design and modeling of pulsed-laser three-dimensional imaging system inspired by compound and human hybrid eye

Abstract

A pulsed-laser three-dimensional imaging system inspired by compound and human hybrid eye is proposed. A diffractive optical element is used to enlarge field of view (FOV) of transmitting system and a receiving system consisting of a non-uniform microlens array, an aperture array, and an avalanche photodiode array is designed. The non-uniform microlens array is arranged on a curved surface to mimic large FOV feature of the compound eye. Meanwhile, the non-uniform microlens array is modeled to mimic space-variant resolution property of the human eye. On the basis of the proposed system, some simulation experiments are carried out. Results show that the entire FOV is up to 52°, and the resolution is 30 × 18. The proposed system has a high resolution in the center FOV and a low resolution in the peripheral FOV. The rotation and scaling invariances of the human eye are verified on the proposed system. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) increases with the increase in the number of rings and the maximum SNR locates at the outmost periphery area. This work is beneficial to the design of the pulsed laser three-dimensional imaging system with large FOV, high speed, and high resolution.

Development of pulsed‐laser three‐dimensional imaging flash lidar using APD arrays

“…The lateral resolution of the pulsed-laser flash lidar was about 15 cm and range accuracy was about 4 cm at a distance of 40 m. There is a tradeoff that exists among large FOV, high speed, and high resolution of the pulsed-laser flash lidar. A novel imaging method inspired by the compound eye and the human eye for the pulsed-laser 3D imaging system is proposed to solve this issue by the Beijing Institute of Technology, 11,111,112 as shown in Figure 7. The receiving optics system consisted of 18 Â 30 microlenses that were distributed on a curved surface to mimic the large FOV feature of the compound eye.…”

“…[5][6][7] Pulsed-laser lidar has received much attention due to its simplicity in principle, the ability of anti-interference, and long imaging distance range. [8][9][10][11] Different from the two-dimension imaging system, the pulsed-laser lidar is particularly notable for its advantages of not affected by the solar illumination condition of the target and background light. [12][13][14] By the use of a pulse-laser with sub-ns pulse width and near-infrared or short wave infrared wavelength (SWIR), pulsed-laser lidar can provide centimeter-scale range resolution over tens of kilometers distance.…”

“…The working principle is simple because the TOF directly represents the distance information 5–7 . Pulsed‐laser lidar has received much attention due to its simplicity in principle, the ability of anti‐interference, and long imaging distance range 8–11 . Different from the two‐dimension imaging system, the pulsed‐laser lidar is particularly notable for its advantages of not affected by the solar illumination condition of the target and background light 12–14 .…”

A Study of Correction to the Point Cloud Distortion Based on MEMS LiDAR System

“…In the field of active optical imaging, a target was exposed and the backscattered light was detected to extract the depth and spatial information for 3D image formation. Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) systems are one of the most important sensors for 3D optical imaging technology [1,2], which has shown enormous potential in different applications including target recognition, ground surface estimation, robotics, and driving on autonomous vehicles [3][4][5][6][7][8]. Therefore, in order to obtain high-quality target information, it is necessary to select appropriate scanning components to improve the imaging performance of LiDAR, which includes, e.g., a galvanometer scanner [9] or Risley prisms [10].…”

Simultaneous Enhancement of Scanning Area and Imaging Speed for a MEMS Mirror Based High Resolution LiDAR

“…In the field of active optical imaging, a target is illuminated by a light source and thus, it can effectively improve the image resolution by simultaneous acquisition of depth and spatial information. A light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is a key sensor for this 3D optical imaging technology [1]- [3]. In recent years, LiDAR shows enormous potential in different applications including geographic information system, robotics, medical diagnostics, computational imaging and driving an autonomous vehicle [4]- [8].…”