Time stretch lidar: a fast spectrally scanned time-of-flight 3D camera

Abstract

Autonomous vehicles and robots, key components of the 4th industrial revolution, must be able to observe their 3D environment in realtime. Currently, the 3D video camera using time-of-flight imaging is the most viable solution however raster speeds are currently limited by the speed of mechanical scanners or by the wavelength tuning speed of pulsed lasers. By adapting techniques from ultrafast time-stretch imaging, a new Lidar platform scans orders of magnitude faster than today’s commercial line-scanning pulsed-Lidar systems.