An optical waveguide has at least two major external surfaces and is configured for guiding light by internal reflection, and is deployed with one of the two major external surfaces in facing relation to a scene. An optical coupling-out configuration is associated with the optical waveguide and is configured for coupling a proportion of light, guided by the optical waveguide, out of the optical waveguide toward the scene. An illumination arrangement is deployed to emit light for coupling into the optical waveguide that is collimated prior to being coupled in the optical waveguide. A detector is configured for sensing light reflected from an object located in the scene in response to illumination of the object by light coupled out of the optical waveguide by the optical coupling-out configuration. A processing subsystem is configured to process signals from the detector to derive information associated with the object.

A TOI LiDAR System generates an image of an object based on the distance of various point measurements to the object. The TOI LiDAR System detects the envelope of an electrical signal created from an interference light signal. The interference light signal is produced from the back-reflected light resulting from a sampling arm light emission to the object combined with a reference light emission. The reference light emission is created by splitting a pulse-modulated coherent light source's emission signal and passing the reference light emission through a reference arm. The optical interference signal is transferred to a balanced photodetector to convert to an electrical signal converted to digital data. The digital data is evaluated to determine the rising edges or falling edges of a digitized electrical interference signal to determine a time delay between the reference light emission and back-reflected light used to calculate the distance.

A three-dimensional imaging system includes at least one light source, a circular or elliptical polarization beamsplitter, a detector arrangement and an image processor. The light source is configured to provide light in a first circular or elliptical polarization state onto an object to be imaged. The circular or elliptical polarization beamsplitter is arranged to spatially separate the light reflected from an object into a first reflected portion in the first polarization state and a second reflected portion in the second polarization state. The first and second circular or elliptical polarization states are orthogonal to one another. The detector arrangement detects at least the first reflected portion of the light and the image processor is configured to generate image information from the detected first reflected portion.

A system and method for performing visual localization is disclosed. In aspects, the system implements methods to generate a global point cloud, the global point cloud representing a plurality of point clouds. The global point cloud can be mapped to a prior map information to locate a position of an autonomous vehicle, the prior map information representing pre-built geographic maps. The position of the autonomous vehicle can be estimated based on applying sensor information obtained from sensors and software of the autonomous vehicle to the mapped global point cloud.

A system and method for scanning an amplitude modulated transmitted beam through a 360° FOV. The method includes generating a laser beam to be transmitted, intensity modulating the laser beam at multiple modulation frequencies, directing the laser beam to a spiral phase plate resonator (SPPR) device, directing a transmitted beam from the SPPR device onto a conical mirror to direct the transmitted beam at a certain angle therefrom depending on the frequency of the laser beam and processing a return beam.

A LiDAR process executed by a signal processing component of a LiDAR apparatus, including: receiving LiDAR signal data representing a signal received at an optical receiver of a LiDAR apparatus and including a scattered and/or reflected portion of an optical signal transmitted by an optical transmitter of the LiDAR apparatus and encoded with a known digital signal, the scattered and/or reflected portion of the transmitted optical signal having been scattered and/or reflected from an object spaced from the LiDAR apparatus by a distance, and having a Doppler shifted angular frequency due to radial motion of the object relative to the LiDAR apparatus; processing the LiDAR signal data to generate corresponding frequency compensated signal data representing a frequency compensated signal corresponding to the received signal, but in which the Doppler shifted angular frequency has been removed and the known digital signal is encoded into the amplitude of the frequency compensated signal; and correlating the frequency compensated signal with a template of the known digital signal to generate a corresponding measurement of the distance of the object from the LiDAR apparatus.

A method for measuring a distance to a target based upon time modulated polarization state illumination is provided. The method includes: transmitting a time varying polarized light beam toward the target; capturing, at a plurality of subpixel regions of a receiver, a reflected time varying polarized light beam that has been reflected off of the target; generating a plurality of polarization signals for each subpixel region that are indicative of the polarization state of the captured reflected light beam in the subpixel region; calculating a time difference between the transmitted time varying polarized light beam and the captured reflected light beam by comparing the polarization state of the captured reflected light beam with a polarization state of the transmitted time varying polarized light beam; and calculating the distance by multiplying the calculated time difference with the speed of light.

A method for measuring a distance to a target based upon time modulated polarization state illumination is provided. The method includes: transmitting a time varying polarized light beam toward the target; capturing, at a plurality of subpixel regions of a receiver, a reflected time varying polarized light beam that has been reflected off of the target; generating a plurality of polarization signals for each subpixel region that are indicative of the polarization state of the captured reflected light beam in the subpixel region; calculating a time difference between the transmitted time varying polarized light beam and the captured reflected light beam by comparing the polarization state of the captured reflected light beam with a polarization state of the transmitted time varying polarized light beam; and calculating the distance by multiplying the calculated time difference with the speed of light.

An optoelectronic device, in particular for the detection of obstacles and/or for distance measurement, may include a transmitting device for emitting laser beams. The transmitting device may include an array of pixels where each pixel of the pixel array comprises at least one laser, such as an optoelectronic laser, e.g. a VCSEL. The pixels of the pixel array may be divided into several sets of pixels, and the transmitting device may be configured to operate the sets of pixels in different, successive time intervals.

An optoelectronic device, in particular for the detection of obstacles and/or for distance measurement, may include a transmitting device for emitting laser beams. The transmitting device may include an array of pixels where each pixel of the pixel array comprises at least one laser, such as an optoelectronic laser, e.g. a VCSEL. The pixels of the pixel array may be divided into several sets of pixels, and the transmitting device may be configured to operate the sets of pixels in different, successive time intervals.