Modeling and Simulation of All-Dielectric Metasurface Structure for LiDAR Beamsteering in Autonomous Vehicles

Abstract

Optical beam steering is important for applications such as Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR). Currently, most commercial LiDARs rely on mechanical rotation to direct the optical beam, resulting in a mechanical LiDAR scan rate that is not optimal for applications such as autonomous vehicles. The metasurface-based beam steering system is believed to have the potential to fulfill all the challenges above. However, low efficiency and wide field of view are still a challenge. Therefore, a disc-shaped all-dielectric metasurface structure for the beam steering system is proposed. The proposed structure was optimized and investigated using electromagnetic analysis simulation software. By varying the geometrical dimensions of the meta-atoms, the optimal size is obtained at the wavelength of the C-Band Optical regime. In addition, the transmission of the output beam deflected by an angle of 45° was achieved. Based on these results, the proposed structure can be a reference for developing beam steering system designs for autonomous vehicle applications in the future.