Patent ID: 11874379
Assignee: THE CHARLES STARK DRAPER LABORATORY, INC.
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 10:
11. A method for operating a LIDAR system in a vehicle to overcome scattering effects, the method comprising:
(a) transmitting, by transmitter optics, a sequence of light pulses towards one of a plurality of locations in a scene to be scanned;
(b) receiving, by receiver optics, light reflected from the scene in a time period between light pulses to produce a time-resolved signal between each of consecutive light pulses;
(c) calculating, by an integrated circuit, a time-resolved contrast over a time window of the plurality of time-resolved signals produced by the plurality of light pulses, the time window corresponding to a time position of the absolute maximum or minimum of the time-resolved contrast in the vicinity of the one of the plurality of locations;
(d) repeating (a) through (c) for each of the remainder of the plurality of locations in the scene to be scanned;
(e) generating a three-dimensional map of the scene from the plurality of time-resolved contrasts for the plurality of locations; and
(f) utilizing the three-dimensional map of the scene to affect operation of the vehicle.