Accuracy improvement of imaging lidar based on time-correlated single-photon counting using three laser beams

Abstract Time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) is one of the most active technologies for optical time-of-flight ranging and three-dimensional (3D) imaging. Ranging accuracy is one of the most critical issues of lidar system. We propose a three-laser-beam TCSPC lidar system. Besides the main measuring laser beam, the second beam is used to decrease the error caused by jitter of time synchronization. The third beam has n+0.5 time bins’ difference with the main measuring beam, and it is used to correct the error caused by the discrete sampling of time-to-digital converter (TDC). To validate the feasibility of the three-laser-beam TCSPC lidar system, a series of simulation experiments using the scheme is carried out. The results show that this method is effective to improve the ranging accuracy of TCSPC lidar system.

[1]  Aongus McCarthy,et al.  A photon-counting time-of-flight ranging technique developed for the avoidance of range ambiguity at gigahertz clock rates. , 2008, Optics express.

[2]  Wei Gao,et al.  A new approach to measure the ocean temperature using Brillouin lidar , 2006 .

[3]  G. Buller,et al.  Kilometer-range, high resolution depth imaging via 1560 nm wavelength single-photon detection. , 2013, Optics express.

[4]  Nils J. Krichel,et al.  Scanning of low-signature targets using time-correlated single-photon counting , 2009, Security + Defence.

[5]  G S Buller,et al.  Laser depth measurement based on time-correlated single-photon counting. , 1997, Optics letters.

[6]  J. Suomalainen,et al.  Full waveform hyperspectral LiDAR for terrestrial laser scanning. , 2012, Optics express.

[7]  Vivek K Goyal,et al.  First-Photon Imaging , 2014, Science.

[8]  Frédéric Bretar,et al.  Full-waveform topographic lidar : State-of-the-art , 2009 .

[9]  Yuan Zhao,et al.  Improvement of range accuracy of range-gating laser radar using the centroid method. , 2010, Applied optics.

[10]  F. Marsili,et al.  Detecting single infrared photons with 93% system efficiency , 2012, 1209.5774.

[11]  G. Buller,et al.  Ranging and Three-Dimensional Imaging Using Time-Correlated Single-Photon Counting and Point-by-Point Acquisition , 2007, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[12]  G. Buller,et al.  Resolving range ambiguity in a photon counting depth imager operating at kilometer distances. , 2010, Optics express.

[13]  Lars Sjöqvist,et al.  Photon counting ladar work at FOI, Sweden , 2012, Defense, Security, and Sensing.

[14]  J. Busck,et al.  Gated viewing and high-accuracy three-dimensional laser radar. , 2004, Applied optics.

[15]  G. Buller,et al.  Underwater depth imaging using time-correlated single photon counting , 2015, Sensing Technologies + Applications.

[16]  Zhiqing Zhong,et al.  Measurements of cirrus clouds with a three-wavelength lidar , 2012 .

[17]  Christy Fernandez-Cull,et al.  Geospatial analysis based on GIS integrated with LADAR. , 2013, Optics express.

[18]  Tanja N. Dreischuh,et al.  Effect of pulse-shape uncertainty on the accuracy of deconvolved lidar profiles , 1995 .

[19]  J. Dynes,et al.  Multi-gigahertz operation of photon counting InGaAs avalanche photodiodes , 2010, 1001.0934.

[20]  William Eugene Carter,et al.  Geodetic imaging with airborne LiDAR: the Earth's surface revealed , 2013, Reports on progress in physics. Physical Society.

[21]  Duo-Min He,et al.  Underwater lidar imaging scaled by 22.5 cm/ns with serial targets , 2004 .

[22]  D. Rosenberg,et al.  High-speed and high-efficiency superconducting nanowire single photon detector array. , 2013, Optics express.

[23]  John W. McLean.  High-resolution 3D underwater imaging , 1999, Optics & Photonics.

[24]  W. Eberhard,et al.  Accuracy of maximum likelihood and least-squares estimates in the lidar slope method with noisy data. , 2017, Applied optics.

[25]  Yuan Zhao,et al.  Delayed range-gating super-resolution imaging lidar with high accuracy , 2012 .

[26]  Gerald S. Buller,et al.  Scanning of low-signature targets using time-correlated single-photon counting , 2009, Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[27]  D. O'connor,et al.  Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting , 1984 .