公开(公告)号：US10436882B2

公开(公告)日：2019-10-08

申请号：US15353955

申请日：2016-11-17

Applicant: Analog Devices Global Unlimited Company

Inventor： Libo Meng ,  Jun Mo ,  Yu Liu ,  Wei Wang ,  Ke Yun

IPC: G01S7/48 ,  G01S7/486 ,  H03M1/36 ,  H03M1/38

Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure propose analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) systems particularly suitable for Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) implementations. An exemplary proposed ADC system is configured to determine whether an absolute value of an analog value is greater than a threshold, and, upon positive determination, assign a predetermined digital value as a digital value corresponding to the analog value, without proceeding with the analog-to-digital conversion of the analog value. Because the ADC system only proceeds with the analog-to-digital conversion, using an ADC, when the input analog value is smaller than the threshold, and otherwise the input analog value is simply assigned some predefined digital value, design complexity and power consumption of the system may be significantly reduced, compared to conventional ADCs used in LIDAR applications.

公开(公告)号：US20190154812A1

公开(公告)日：2019-05-23

申请号：US15819976

申请日：2017-11-21

Applicant: Analog Devices Global Unlimited Company

Inventor： Libo Meng ,  Qingdong Meng ,  Wei Wang

IPC: G01S7/486 ,  G01S17/10

Abstract: A lidar system can be used to measure a distance to one or more objects in a target region, such as by transmitting light towards the target and then receiving light reflected or scattered from the target. Received light can be stored as charge on storage elements such as capacitors, where received light can be stored on different storage elements depending on a time of arrival of the received light. A reduction in the number of storage elements can be achieved by providing one or more groups of storage elements, where each group of storage elements can correspond to a digit of a time of flight, where the time of flight can be round trip travel time of a light beam travelling from the lidar system to the target region and then back to the lidar system. Each group of storage elements can be arranged in a binary tree of a decimal tree configuration. Additionally, a time of activation of each of the storage elements can be increased with an increasing time of flight, such as to compensate for a decreased strength of the received light as the time of flight increases.