Work

Speckle effects on time-of-flight estimation of lidar pulses

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Speckle effects particularly impact the performance of compact lidars. The surface roughness and slope spread a received laser pulse to contain M t temporal speckle cells, distorting the pulse shape and degrading the centroid-based time-of-flight (ToF) estimation. Laser spectral broadening from repeated phase modulation increases M t and improves the ToF estimation when the surface is significantly rough, but degrades the ToF estimation moderately when the surface is smoother. The solar background and dark noise contributions can be reduced by weighting the waveforms. Line-fitting and plane-fitting to multiple return waveforms are analyzed for precision retrievals of the range rate, slope, and range.

Source: Optics Express

DOI: 10.1364/oe.557376

Authors: Jeffrey R. Chen, Guangning Yang, Mark A. Stephen, Hui Li

Language: English

Topic: Advanced Optical Sensing Technologies

Subfield: Instrumentation

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,270

Funder: NASA Earth Science Technology Office

Award: G4607668502