Automotive Three-Dimensional Vision Through a Single-Photon Counting SPAD Camera

作者：Bronzi Danilo^*; Zou Yu; Villa Federica; Tisa Simone; Tosi Alberto; Zappa Franco

来源：IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 2016, 17(3): 782-795.

DOI：10.1109/TITS.2015.2482601

• 3-D ranging
• 2-D imaging
• single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs)
• time-of-flight (ToF)
• range-finding

We present an optical 3-D ranging camera for automotive applications that is able to provide a centimeter depth resolution over a 40 degrees x 20 degrees field of view up to 45 m with just 1.5W of active illumination at 808 nm. The enabling technology we developed is based on a CMOS imager chip of 64 x 32 pixels, each with a single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) and three 9-bit digital counters, able to perform lock-in time-of-flight calculation of individual photons emitted by a laser illuminator, reflected by the objects in the scene, and eventually detected by the camera. Due to the SPAD single-photon sensitivity and the smart in-pixel processing, the camera provides state-of-the-art performance at both high frame rates and very low light levels without the need for scanning and with global shutter benefits. Furthermore, the CMOS process is automotive certified.

• 出版日期2016-3