Abstract
In recent years, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) has been drawing extensive attention both in academia and industry because of the increasing demand for autonomous vehicles. LiDAR is believed to be the crucial sensor for autonomous driving and flying, as it can provide high-density point clouds with accurate three-dimensional information. This review presents an extensive overview of Microelectronechanical Systems (MEMS) scanning mirrors specifically for applications in LiDAR systems. MEMS mirror-based laser scanners have unrivalled advantages in terms of size, speed and cost over other types of laser scanners, making them ideal for LiDAR in a wide range of applications. A figure of merit (FoM) is defined for MEMS mirrors in LiDAR scanners in terms of aperture size, field of view (FoV) and resonant frequency. Various MEMS mirrors based on different actuation mechanisms are compared using the FoM. Finally, a preliminary assessment of off-the-shelf MEMS scanned LiDAR systems is given.
Highlights
LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, is a dynamic distance measurement method
LiDAR was demonstrated in the early 1960s and it was first utilized in meteorology [1]
LiDAR has become tremendously valuable in autonomous vehicles, including self-driving cars, automatic guided vehicles (AGVs), and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
Summary
LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, is a dynamic distance measurement method. LiDAR was demonstrated in the early 1960s and it was first utilized in meteorology [1]. Among the scanning LiDAR, non-mechanical scanning LiDAR systems often use optical phased arrays (OPAs) to steer the laser beam without any moving parts [9]. Flash LiDAR and OPA LiDAR are collectively called solid state LiDAR as they do not have moving parts for laser scanning. The OPAs with several types of phase modulators have been reported, based on different approaches using liquid crystals, MEMS, or silicon photonics [9,15]. The big challenge now is how to increase the output optical power of silicon photonics phased arrays to the level for practical use [22,23,24] Both non-scanning and non-mechanical scanning LiDAR are often referred as solid-state LiDAR
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