Luminar Technologies, Inc.
Coherent pulsed lidar system

Abstract:

In one embodiment, a lidar system includes a light source configured to emit (i) local-oscillator light and (ii) pulses of light, where each emitted pulse of light is coherent with a corresponding portion of the local-oscillator light. The lidar system also includes a receiver configured to detect the local-oscillator light and a received pulse of light, the received pulse of light comprising light from one of the emitted pulses of light that is scattered by a target located a distance from the lidar system. The local-oscillator light and the received pulse of light are coherently mixed together at the receiver. The receiver includes one or more detectors configured to produce one or more respective photocurrent signals corresponding to the coherent mixing of the local-oscillator light and the received pulse of light. The receiver also includes a pulse-detection circuit configured to determine a time-of-arrival for the received pulse of light.