Long-range depth imaging using time-correlated single-photon counting

Krichel, Nils J.; McCarthy, Aongus; Wallace, Andrew M.; Ye, Jing; Buller, Gerald S.

doi:10.1117/12.876144

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(18 reference statements)

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“…The inherent jitter of system is contributed by each component of the TCSPC system, such as the pulsed laser, the photon counting module and the signal processing module and so on. In our system, a commercially sophisticated photon counting module (SPCM-AQRH-14, Perkin Elmer) has been adopted [12], whose jitter cannot be changed and improved in our system. However, the overall jitter generated by pulsed laser and signal processing module, whose histogram is shown in Fig.7, can been measured and improved.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Optimized design of a TOF laser range finder based on time-correlated single-photon counting

et al. 2014

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A time-of-flight (TOF) laser range finder based on time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) has been developed. By using a Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode (G-APD) with the ability of detecting single-photon events and Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC) with picosecond resolution, a good linearity with 4.5 cm range precision can be achieved in the range of 1-10 m. This paper highlights a significant advance in improving the key parameters of this system, including the range precision and measurement dynamic range. In our experiments, it was found that both of the precision and the measurement dynamic range were limited by the signal to noise rate (SNR) and the inherent jitter of system. The range precision can be improved by enhancing the SNR of system. However, when the SNR is high enough, the main factors affecting the range precision will turn into the inherent jitter, which makes the range precision can not be improved infinitely. Moreover, the inherent jitter generated by pulsed laser and the signal processing module has been measured, and its influence on the system performance has also been discussed. Taking all of these factors into account, some optimized designs have been proposed to improve range precision and dynamic range simultaneously. The final experiment results show that, after all of these optimization designs, the range precision of system is better than 1.2 cm and the measurement dynamic range is enlarged to 54 m when the sampling time is as short as 1 ms, which is sufficient for many applications of 3D object recognition, computer vision, reverse engineering and virtual reality.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the picosecond jitter will result in the precision of centimeters. In previous research, construction of a TCSPC based TOF laser range finder has been reported in various applications [11][12][13][14]. However, the impact of SNR and jitter on the performance of this type of system is under-researched.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Optimized design of a TOF laser range finder based on time-correlated single-photon counting

et al. 2014

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“…η atm denotes laser's transmission efficiency through the atmosphere, which can be expressed as a function of the target range R and the atmospheric attenuation factor μ a (i.e., η atm = e −μ a R ). η sys denotes receiver optical system's efficiency and it is measured as 0.07 using the method in reference [40]. The value of η sys is not very high for the reason of optical elements' attenuation (i.e., band pass filter, objective lens, eyepiece and fiber), fiber coupling losses and possible misalignment of the optical system.…”

Section: Rm Sementioning

confidence: 99%

Fast Long-Range Photon Counting Depth Imaging With Sparse Single-Photon Data

Kang

Liu

et al. 2018

IEEE Photonics J.

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Fast depth imaging of noncooperative targets at a range of up to 900 m is demonstrated based on the time-of-flight time-correlated single-photon counting technique. Experimental results shown that our image system has the ability of reconstructing depth images with data of less than one photon per pixel. Especially, utilizing a modified total variation regularization algorithm with an optimal initial value, the acquisition time necessary for each pixel could be reduced by a factor of 8 compared to the traditional median filter approach, and the image processing time is extremely improved. This depth imaging system is a low-light-level device for a variety of applications, such as target detection, space surveillance, and distance measurement.

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Single-photon pulsed-light indirect time-of-flight 3D ranging

et al. 2013

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"Indirect" time-of-flight is one technique to obtain depth-resolved images through active illumination that is becoming more popular in the recent years. Several methods and light timing patterns are used nowadays, aimed at improving measurement precision with smarter algorithms, while using less and less light power. Purpose of this work is to present an indirect time-of-flight imaging camera based on pulsed-light active illumination and a 32 × 32 single-photon avalanche diode array with an improved illumination timing pattern, able to increase depth resolution and to reach single-photon level sensitivity.

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Long-range depth imaging using time-correlated single-photon counting

Cited by 4 publications

References 16 publications

Optimized design of a TOF laser range finder based on time-correlated single-photon counting

Optimized design of a TOF laser range finder based on time-correlated single-photon counting

Fast Long-Range Photon Counting Depth Imaging With Sparse Single-Photon Data

Single-photon pulsed-light indirect time-of-flight 3D ranging

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