Design and Demonstration of a Novel Long-Range Photon-Counting 3D Imaging LiDAR with 32 × 32 Transceivers

Abstract

Geiger-mode single-photon LiDAR is an important tool for long-distance three-dimensional remote sensing. A planar-array-based photon counting LiDAR that uses 32-by-32 fiber arrays coupled to an optical lens as a transceiver unit was developed. Using transmitters and receivers with the same design, the proposed device easily achieves a high-precision alignment of 1024 pixels and flexible detection field-of-view design. The LiDAR uses a set of relay lenses to couple echoes from the receiving fiber arrays to the pixels of a planar-array single-photon detector, which has a resolution enhanced by a factor of four (64-by-64) relative to the fiber array to reduce cross talk from neighboring pixels. The results of field experiments demonstrate that the proposed LiDAR can reconstruct a three-dimensional image from a distance of 1600 m. Even at an acquisition time of only 40 ms, targets with an area of approximately 50% can still be identified from 200 frames. These results demonstrate the potential of the LiDAR prototype for use in instantaneous high-density point-array measurement and long-range wide-FoV 3D imaging, which can be used in remote sensing applications such as airborne surveys and mapping. In the future, we will integrate the proposed LiDAR prototype and the pose measurement system to take the aircraft-based 3D imaging remote sensing experiments.