Patent ID: 11892566
Assignee: OPTOWAVES, INC.
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 26:
27. A method for determining an object's distance comprises the steps of:
generating a coherent light beam;
modulating the coherent light beam with a pulsed wavelength-modulating signal;
polarizing the pulsed wavelength-modulated light beam by adjusting the polarization states of the pulsed wavelength-modulated light beam and maximizing the amplitude of optical interference signals;
optically splitting the pulsed wavelength-modulated light beam into at least two pulsed wavelength-modulated light beams;
coupling each of the at least two pulsed wavelength-modulated light beams to one of at least two LiDAR Modules for creating a sampling pulsed wavelength-modulated light beam and a reference pulsed wavelength-modulated light beam;
transferring the at least two pulsed wavelength-modulated light beams to a hybrid scanner module for establishing a scan pattern for each of the pulsed wavelength-modulated light beams;
scanning the at least two pulsed wavelength-modulated light beams at an object whose distance from a source of the wavelength-modulated coherent light beam is to be measured;
receiving the back-reflected portion of the at least two pulsed wavelength-modulated light beams from the object to be measured;
coupling each back-reflected portion of each of the at least two pulsed wavelength-modulated light beams to a corresponding LiDAR module of the at least two pulsed wavelength-modulated light beams to form an electrical signal representing each of the at least two pulsed wavelength-modulated light beams;
forming a hybrid scanner by the steps of
forming a plurality of optical collimators by configuring the optical collimators such that one sampled pulsed wavelength-modulated coherent light beam is transferred to each collimator of the plurality of optical collimators;
wherein forming each optical collimator of the plurality of optical collimators to contain one or more graded-index fiber rods, by forming each fiber rod with a separate lens in contact with the graded-index fiber rod for providing a low numerical aperture as required of the graded-index fiber rod and and forming the engineered graded-index lens for long-distance illumination and the higher numerical aperture required for receiving back-reflected pulsed wavelength-modulated coherent light from the objective;

digitizing the electrical signals;
detecting an envelope of each of the digitized electrical signals for determining the envelope of each of the digitized electrical signals;
determining the times of rising or falling edges of the envelope of the digitized electrical signal;
determining the time difference between the rising or falling edges of the envelope of the digitized interference signal;
calculating a distance to the object to be measured is calculated; and
forming a two-dimensional ranging image based on all distance measurements scanned by the at least two pulsed wavelength-modulated light beams across the object to be measured.