SBIR Phase II: Focal Plane Array for Active Coherent Imaging

该小企业创新研究 (SBIR) 第二阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力在于开发技术，使能够在更小、更经济的无人机中使用 3 维 (3D) 光探测和测距 (LiDAR) 系统来进行测绘、测量和导航。 3D LiDAR 在环境管理、林业、土地和走廊测绘、建筑、土地测量、精准农业、电力线路和基础设施检查以及无数其他领域具有重要应用。该技术将通过降低高性能激光雷达系统和可携带该系统的无人机的拥有成本，为各行业带来重大的经济影响。无人机激光雷达应用入门成本的降低将反过来有利于小型企业执行较小规模的测绘和测量项目。除了基于无人机的应用之外，这项创新还有望显着降低成本，并在自动驾驶车辆和其他工业应用（包括机器人、智能城市基础设施、监控和安全）以及增强现实 3D 传感等消费应用中提供 3D LiDAR 传感的无缝集成。该项目所实现的众多应用不仅有助于提高美国的经济竞争力，还可以提高生活质量、安全性和安全性。该项目旨在开发高性能、紧凑、轻量的3D LiDAR传感器，以满足基于无人机的高精度LiDAR应用日益增长的需求。当前的商用高性能无人机激光雷达系统因成本高、体积大、重量重和功耗高而臭名昭著。 当前的无人机激光雷达系统也容易出现机械损坏。这些问题不可避免地缩短了无人机的飞行时间，抑制了高性能激光雷达系统在更常见的消费级小型无人机上的安装，并增加了运营成本。拟议的激光雷达传感器将通过在创新设计中利用高性能相干激光雷达检测方法和硅光子技术来缓解所有这些问题。相干激光雷达检测方法比大多数现有激光雷达系统中使用的方法允许更灵敏的测量。该技术在相同激光功率的情况下实现了更长的探测距离和更多的返回次数。 LiDAR 传感器基于高度可扩展的互补金属氧化物半导体 (CMOS) 兼容硅光子技术，能够以紧凑的尺寸实现高空间分辨率。整个系统的外形类似于小型无人机摄影测量中常用的手掌大小的紧凑型相机。该解决方案不需要用于光束扫描的机械机制，也不需要光学元件的高精度对准，使得该系统本质上耐用、紧凑、轻便且节能。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is in developing technology that will enable the use of a 3-dimensional (3D) light detection and ranging (LiDAR) system in smaller and more economical drones for mapping, surveying, and navigation. The 3D LiDAR has important applications in environment management, forestry, land and corridor mapping, construction, land surveying, precision agriculture, powerline and infrastructure inspection, and countless other areas. The technology will bring significant economic impacts to the industries by reducing the ownership costs of a high-performance LiDAR system and the drone that can carry this system. The reduction of the entry-cost for LiDAR applications with drones will in turn benefit small businesses to perform smaller-scale projects in mapping and surveying. Other than drone-based applications, the innovation is poised to significantly reduce the costs and provide seamless integration of 3D LiDAR sensing in self-driving vehicles and other industrial applications including robotics, smart city infrastructure, surveillance, and security, as well as consumer applications like 3D sensing for augmented reality. The numerous applications enabled by the proposed project not will only help increase the economic competitiveness of the U.S. but also improve quality of life, security and safety.The proposed project aims at developing a high-performance, compact, and light-weight 3D LiDAR sensor to meet the increasing needs of drone-based, high-precision LiDAR applications. Current commercial high-performance drone-LiDAR systems are notorious for their high cost, bulkiness, heavy weight, and high power-consumption. Current drone-LiDAR systems are also prone to mechanical damage. These issues inevitably shorten the drone flight time, inhibit the installations of high-performance LiDAR systems on the more common consumer-grade small drones, and increase the operation costs. The proposed LiDAR sensor will mitigate all of these issues by leveraging a high-performance coherent LiDAR detection approach with silicon photonics technology in an innovative design. The coherent LiDAR detection method allows more sensitive measurements than the method used in most existing LiDAR systems. The technology achieves a longer detection range and larger number of returns given the same laser power. Based on highly scalable Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible silicon photonics technology, the LiDAR sensor is able to achieve high spatial resolution in a compact size. The entire system will have a form-factor similar to a palm-sized compact camera commonly used for photogrammetry in small drones. The solution requires no mechanical mechanisms for beam scanning nor high-precision alignment of optical components, making the system inherently durable, compact, lightweight, and power efficient.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.