A Linear Dynamic Range Receiver With Timing Discrimination for Pulsed TOF Imaging LADAR Application
26 Apr 2018-IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement (IEEE)-Vol. 67, Iss: 11, pp 2684-2691
TL;DR: This paper presents a linear and wide dynamic range receiver for pulsed time-of-flight imaging laser detection and ranging application, which can capture the pulsed echo intensity.
Abstract: This paper presents a linear and wide dynamic range (DR) receiver for pulsed time-of-flight imaging laser detection and ranging application, which can capture the pulsed echo intensity. The alternative leading edge timing discrimination scheme with two threshold voltages by differential voltage shift is utilized to compensate the walk error, and thus accurately obtain timing information. The proposed receiver was implemented and fabricated in a 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS technology. The receiver achieves a high differential transimpedance gain of 106 dB $\Omega $ , a wide differential output swing of about 1.8 V, an input-referred noise current of 4.55 pA/Hz0.5 and a minimum detectable signal of about $0.28~\mu $ Arms at SNR = 5, leading to a linear DR of 66 dB with a 3.3-V power supply. The area of the receiver chip is equal to $0.95\times0.95$ mm2.
Citations
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TL;DR: In this article, a linear-mode optical sensor for the feasible applications of unmanned vehicle LiDAR systems, in which a pulsed-erbium fiber laser is exploited as a light source and a 16-channel transimpedance amplifier (TIA) array is utilized in an optical Rx module with low-cost InGaAs PIN photodiodes.
Abstract: This paper presents a linear-mode optical sensor for the feasible applications of unmanned vehicle LiDAR systems, in which a pulsed-erbium fiber laser is exploited as a light source and a 16-channel transimpedance amplifier (TIA) array is utilized in an optical Rx module with low-cost InGaAs PIN photodiodes. In particular, a voltage-mode CMOS feedforward (VCF-TIA) is newly proposed to achieve twice higher transimpedance gain with lower noise and similar bandwidth characteristics than a conventional inverter TIA, thereby enabling longer detection. Test chips of the 16-channel VCF-TIA array realized in a standard 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS process demonstrate 76.3-dB $\Omega $ transimpedance gain, 6.3-pA/sqrt(Hz) average noise current spectral density, less than −33-dB crosstalk between channels, and 29.8-mW power dissipation per channel from a single 1.8-V supply. Automatic gain control is also equipped to extend input dynamic range for near-range detection. Hence, the proposed linear-mode optical sensor clearly detects the reflected optical pulses from the target of 5% reflection rate within the range of 0.5–25 m.
46 citations
Cites methods from "A Linear Dynamic Range Receiver Wit..."
...As a front-end circuit, a voltage-mode inverter (INV) TIA has been conventionally utilized [11]–[13]....
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TL;DR: An integrated receiver–time-to-digital converter (TDC) chip set is developed for pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) laser rangefinding and measurement accuracy of ~ ±3 mm was achieved with noncooperative targets at a distance range of a few tens of meters within an amplitude range of received echoes of 1:40 000.
Abstract: An integrated receiver–time-to-digital converter (TDC) chip set is developed for pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) laser rangefinding. The receiver detects the current pulse from the optical detector and produces a timing mark for the TDC. The receiver uses time mode walk error compensation scheme achieving $\mu \text{m}$ complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The functionality of the chip set was demonstrated in a laser radar platform using 12 W and 3-ns optical pulses produced by a laser diode (LD). Measurement accuracy of ~ ±3 mm was achieved with noncooperative targets at a distance range of a few tens of meters within an amplitude range of received echoes of 1:40 000.
44 citations
Cites background from "A Linear Dynamic Range Receiver Wit..."
...In [25]–[26], the timing accuracy is less than ±75 mm within a dynamic range of approximately <1:10 000, whereas millimeter-level accuracy was achieved over a wider dynamic range in the present study, however at a cost of somewhat higher noise....
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TL;DR: The amplitude saturation error (ASE) is compensated in this article for the intensity determination, which is conducted based on the combination of the pulse width and peak detector, and together with the improved walk error compensation scheme, the proposed AFE circuit can attain the distance and intensity information simultaneously with lower cost and larger dynamic range.
Abstract: An analog front-end (AFE) circuit comprising an amplifier module, a peak detector, and a timing discriminator has been designed to facilitate the target identification for direct time-of-flight (dToF) LiDAR. The amplitude saturation error (ASE) is compensated in this article for the intensity determination, which is conducted based on the combination of the pulse width and peak detector. Together with the improved walk error compensation scheme, the proposed AFE circuit can attain the distance and intensity information simultaneously with lower cost and larger dynamic range. A specific frequency compensation method is proposed with a shunt feedback TIA, which improves the stability and mitigates the impact of the package parasitics. The measured -3-dB bandwidth, transimpedance gain, and the input-referred noise current are 281 MHz, 86 dB $\Omega $ , and 4.68 pA/ $\surd $ Hz respectively. The proposed AFE circuit, which is fabricated in $0.18~\mu \text{m}$ CMOS technology, achieves the distance accuracy of ±30 ps and the intensity accuracy of ±4% in the dynamic range of 1:5000 without gain control scheme.
30 citations
Cites background from "A Linear Dynamic Range Receiver Wit..."
...In the design, assuming the surface of the target is Lambertian, the received optical power can be described as [17]...
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TL;DR: An 8-ch LIDAR receiver for pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) imaging laser detection and ranging application can achieve both 100 m and high-precision range imaging with lower system cost, which was untrodden with conventional LidARs.
Abstract: This article presents an 8-ch LIDAR receiver for pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) imaging laser detection and ranging application. The proposed LIDAR receiver can achieve both 100 m and high-precision range imaging with lower system cost, which was untrodden with conventional LIDARs. The time-to-digital converter (TDC) with multi-intervals detection is used to measure the TOF and eliminate the walking error. Spatial Savitzky–Golay smoothing filter (SSGSF) is used to improve measuring range and precision of the LIDAR system, which is based on mixed timing sampling (MTS). The MTS is realized by TDC, analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with 200-MS/s sampling rate, and mixed interpolation algorithm. Based on the proposed LIDAR receiver, extensive experiments have been performed to verify the performance of the LIDAR receiver. The ranging precision of the LIDAR receiver is 40 mm when the rising time of the echo signal is 3 ns and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is 10. Furthermore, the LIDAR receiver achieves a measurement range of 100 m with a peak power of 30 W and an execution time of $2.4~\mu \text{s}$ for a complete measurement.
28 citations
Cites background from "A Linear Dynamic Range Receiver Wit..."
...targets of the Lambertian type can simply be derived through the well-known radar equation and responsibility of APD [15]...
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TL;DR: This article presents a low-power, all-digital multichannel time-to-digital converter (TDC) for light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors and can generate information for amplitude variation (walk error) compensation.
Abstract: This article presents a low-power, all-digital multichannel time-to-digital converter (TDC) for light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors. The proposed TDC architecture measures the time interval through a coarse counter, middle, and fine delay line-based interpolation technique (the Nutt method). Automatic calibration by middle and fine all-digital delay-locked loops (ADDLLs) is provided to ensure the stability of the generated time slots. Charge pump, loop filter, and voltage-controlled delay line inside the conventional analog delay-locked loops (DLLs) are replaced by an accumulator (ACC) and digitally controlled delay line (DCDL). This makes the design particularly compact, low power, and suitable for multichannel applications. The presented architecture can generate information for amplitude variation (walk error) compensation. This information is generated by measuring the pulsewidth and position of three successive STOP pulses inside each channel within a single-shot measurement. A low-jitter injection-locked frequency multiplier (ILFM) generates a 625-MHz internal clock signal out of 25-MHz external reference oscillator, which shrinks the number of delay elements to cover one period of the reference clock and improves the precision of the TDC. Operation at higher frequency provides high throughput and short conversion time (less than 3 ns). The three-level TDC offers 13.1- $\mu \text{s}$ maximum input range and 50-ps resolution. The measured DNL and INL of the TDC circuit are 0.47 and 0.71 LSB, respectively. The TDC circuit is implemented in a 180-nm standard CMOS process with a die size of 1.5 mm $\times1.5$ mm. The total power consumption of the multichannel TDC is 87.6 mW.
23 citations
Cites background from "A Linear Dynamic Range Receiver Wit..."
...This approach provides a wide dynamic range and high-speed operation, but it suffers from timing or walk error by amplitude variation due to reflectivity of the surface and direction of the objects [8], [9]....
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References
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TL;DR: An integrated receiver that includes both the time-to-digital converter (TDC) and the receiver channel and is intended for a pulsed time-of-flight laser rangefinder with a measurement range of approximately 10 m has been designed and fabricated in a standard 0.13 mum CMOS process.
Abstract: An integrated receiver that includes both the time-to-digital converter (TDC) and the receiver channel and is intended for a pulsed time-of-flight laser rangefinder with a measurement range of approximately 10 m has been designed and fabricated in a standard 0.13 mum CMOS process. The receiver operates by detecting the current pulse of an optical detector and producing a stop timing mark for the TDC by means of a leading edge timing discriminator. The TDC is used to measure the actual time interval between the start and stop pulses and the slew-rate of the stop pulse, to compensate for a walk error produced in the discriminator. The single-shot precision of the whole receiver is 250 ps for a minimum detectable signal, and its accuracy and power consumption are plusmn 37 ps with compensation within a dynamic range of at least 1:10,000 and less than 45 mW, respectively. The size of the die is 1300 mum times1300 mum including pads.
88 citations
"A Linear Dynamic Range Receiver Wit..." refers background or methods in this paper
...Although [1], [4], [19], and [21] have a wider DRand lower walk error than the proposed receiver, however, the above-mentioned work cannot linearly capture the pulsed echo intensity signal for imaging LADAR application....
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..., lookup table) and decreasing timing jitter through increasing SNR are usually utilized depending on the accuracy required [4], [19]....
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...Recently, to compensate the walk error in the wide DR receiver, two timing marks in the timing discriminator are introduced to compensate the walk error [18], [19]....
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TL;DR: Experimental results show that the proposed 3-D-laser-based scene measurement technique and place recognition approach are effective and provide robust performance of place recognition in a dynamic indoor environment.
Abstract: Active environment perception and autonomous place recognition play a key role for mobile robots to operate within a cluttered indoor environment with dynamic changes. This paper presents a 3-D-laser-based scene measurement technique and a novel place recognition method to deal with the random disturbances caused by unexpected movements of people and other objects. The proposed approach can extract and match the Speeded-Up Robust Features (SURFs) from bearing-angle images generated by a self-built rotating 3-D laser scanner. It can cope with the irregular disturbance of moving objects and the problem of observing-location changes of the laser scanner. Both global metric information and local SURF features are extracted from 3-D laser point clouds and 2-D bearing-angle images, respectively. A large-scale indoor environment with over 1600 m2 and 30 offices is selected as a testing site, and a mobile robot, i.e., SmartROB2, is deployed for conducting experiments. Experimental results show that the proposed 3-D-laser-based scene measurement technique and place recognition approach are effective and provide robust performance of place recognition in a dynamic indoor environment.
81 citations
"A Linear Dynamic Range Receiver Wit..." refers methods in this paper
...THE laser detection and ranging (LADAR) system is widely used today in industrial fields [1]–[6], including auxiliary driving, intelligent robot, and unmanned aerial vehicle....
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TL;DR: In this article, an integrated receiver channel of a pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) laser rangefinder for fast industrial measurement applications with the measurement accuracy of a few centimeters in the measurement range from /spl sim/1 m to /pl sim/30 m to noncooperative targets was developed.
Abstract: An integrated receiver channel of a pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) laser rangefinder for fast industrial measurement applications with the measurement accuracy of a few centimeters in the measurement range from /spl sim/1 m to /spl sim/30 m to noncooperative targets was developed. The receiver channel consists of a fully differential transimpedance amplifier channel, a peak detector, an rms meter and a timing discriminator. In this particular application there is no time to measure the received signal strength beforehand and it is not predictable from previous measurements, so a leading edge timing discriminator with a constant threshold voltage was used. The amplitude of the received pulse is measured with a peak detector and the amplitude information is used to compensate for the resulting walk error. The measured bandwidth of the receiver channel is 250 MHz, the maximum transimpedance 40k/spl Omega/ and the input-referred noise /spl sim/7pA//spl radic/Hz (C/sub photodiode/=2 pF). The timing detection accuracy of the receiver is better than /spl plusmn/35 mm in a single-shot measurement in a dynamic range of 1:4000 and a temperature range of 0/spl deg/C to +50/spl deg/C.
70 citations
"A Linear Dynamic Range Receiver Wit..." refers background in this paper
...To identify the arrival timing point of the pulsed echo, the simplest scheme is the leading edge timing discrimination [14]....
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TL;DR: An integrated receiver with high sensitivity and low walk error for a military purpose pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) LADAR system is proposed, and a new walk-error improvement circuit based on a constant-delay detection method is proposed.
Abstract: An integrated receiver with high sensitivity and low walk error for a military purpose pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) LADAR system is proposed. The proposed receiver adopts a dual-gain capacitive-feedback TIA (C-TIA) instead of widely used resistive-feedback TIA (R-TIA) to increase the sensitivity. In addition, a new walk-error improvement circuit based on a constant-delay detection method is proposed. Implemented in 0.35 μm CMOS technology, the receiver achieves an input-referred noise current of 1.36 pA/√Hz with bandwidth of 140 MHz and minimum detectable signal (MDS) of 10 nW with a 5 ns pulse at SNR=3.3, maximum walk-error of 2.8 ns, and a dynamic range of 1:12,000 over the operating temperature range of -40 °
C to +85 °
C.
69 citations
"A Linear Dynamic Range Receiver Wit..." refers background or methods or result in this paper
...To linearly capture the intensity signal of the pulsed echo, the proposed receiver with AGC scheme shows better flexibility and compatibility, and higher cost-effectiveness than the prior arts [8], [18], and [21] with external voltage source and programmable digital codes, respectively....
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...Compared with the conventional pulselength [1] and leading edge [4] and [18] timing discrimination schemes, the proposed scheme with DVS can reduce the common noise and eliminate the threshold voltage generator circuits, and the offset voltage of the timing comparator has little influence...
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...Recently, to compensate the walk error in the wide DR receiver, two timing marks in the timing discriminator are introduced to compensate the walk error [18], [19]....
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...Besides, compared with [18], the proposed receiver achieves a smaller walk error and a larger BW....
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TL;DR: An integrated receiver channel for a pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) laser rangefinder has been designed and fabricated in a 0.35-μm SiGe BiCMOS process by means of a leading-edge timing discriminator that detects the crossover of the received pulse with respect to a set reference level.
Abstract: An integrated receiver channel for a pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) laser rangefinder has been designed and fabricated in a 0.35-μm SiGe BiCMOS process. The receiver channel generates a timing mark for the TDC by means of a leading-edge timing discriminator that detects the crossover of the received pulse with respect to a set reference level. The walk error generated by the amplitude variation is compensated in the time domain on the basis of the measured dependence of the walk on the length of the received pulse. The measurement accuracy is ±15 ps with compensation within a dynamic range of 1:100000, and the single-shot precision and power consumption are 120 ps for a minimum detectable signal of ~1 μA and 115 mW, respectively.
65 citations
"A Linear Dynamic Range Receiver Wit..." refers background or methods in this paper
...Although [1], [4], [19], and [21] have a wider DRand lower walk error than the proposed receiver, however, the above-mentioned work cannot linearly capture the pulsed echo intensity signal for imaging LADAR application....
[...]
...Compared with the conventional pulselength [1] and leading edge [4] and [18] timing discrimination schemes, the proposed scheme with DVS can reduce the common noise and eliminate the threshold voltage generator circuits, and the offset voltage of the timing comparator has little influence...
[...]
...THE laser detection and ranging (LADAR) system is widely used today in industrial fields [1]–[6], including auxiliary driving, intelligent robot, and unmanned aerial vehicle....
[...]