DMD-based diffractive FOV expansion for real-time flash lidar with 2D multi-pixel photon counter

Abstract

We demonstrated a real-time lidar system that utilizes a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) as a field of view (FOV) expander and a 2D Multi-Pixel Photon Counter (MPPC) as a lidar sensor. By synchronizing the dynamic transition of DMD micromirrors between on- and off-states with the MPPC and a nanosecond pulse laser, the receiver FOV is diffractively steered to expected direction enabled by timing the delay of micromirrors transition to the laser. The DMD-MPPC lidar can capture up to 7 diffraction orders of high-resolution geospatial data. By applying the laser beam steering technique, this system is able to span over 35 degrees FOV, which is 10 times expansion of FOV compared to the single lidar detector FOV. In this work, as a preliminary demonstration towards diffractive FOV expansion, we presented the high resolution lidar images while DMD is switching between on and off state. Also, we performed distance resolution testing to validate the functionality of DMD-MPPC flash lidar system.