Flash Lidar Sensor Using Fiber-Coupled APDs

In contrast to scanning light detection and ranging (Lidar) system, the flash Lidar has no mechanical moving errors, and its features include light weight, small volume, and energy efficiency. This paper presents the advances of the newest research on a flash Lidar sensing instrument based on fiber-coupled avalanche photodiodes (APDs), which is named GLidar featured with easily increasable pixels of Lidar sensor, effectively reducible electrical crosstalk of adjacent pixels, and cost efficiency when compared with flash Lidar with a single APD array. A complete laser emitting system, including laser emitting and receiving system, controlling systems, electro-optic transmitting system and high precision time-interval measurement system, and different kinds of power supplies has been designed and implemented. The fiber-coupled APDs are arranged in a 5 × 5 array as a key element of the Lidar sensor. The experimental results through the multipoint distance measurement show that the greatest error among the 25 channels of the Lidar sensor is 0.08 m when the target is 13 m away, and the accuracy validation in a hallway demonstrated the accuracy of distance measurement can reach 10.8 cm.