Patent ID: 11921238
Assignee: THE CHARLES STARK DRAPER LABORATORY, INC.
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 0:
1. A computer-implemented method employing at least one hardware implemented computer processor for lidar imaging, the method comprising:
operating the at least one hardware processor to execute program instructions to:
pulse each of a plurality of scan locations in a scene with a light pulse sequence from a light source;
measure reflected light from the scene for each light pulse to form at least one time resolved light signal for each scan location in the scene, wherein each time resolved light signal indicates a measure of received light in each of a series of time bins, wherein measuring the reflected light includes detrending the time resolved light signals and adaptively filtering the time resolved light signals to offset scattering effects in the measured reflected light, wherein adaptively filtering the time resolved light signals includes adaptively adjusting filter stop frequency;
responsive to a minimum number of photons in the time bins failing to be received, combine adjoining time bins to those time bins to form super time bins, wherein each super time bin indicates a measure representing a sum of the received light in the adjoining time bins;
create a three dimensional image of the scene from the measures in the super time bin;
locate one or more objects depicted in a plurality of the scan locations in the image; and
for each object, combine the time resolved light signals for a plurality of the scan locations of the one or more objects to form a single object time resolved light signal for each object from which to determine distance to the object.