Adaptive Depth Imaging with Single-Photon Detectors

TL;DR

This paper introduces an adaptive depth imaging method using single-photon detectors that achieves fast, accurate 3D imaging in low-light conditions by combining photon statistics and temporal correlations, adjusting dwell time per pixel.

Contribution

It presents a novel adaptive imaging technique that reduces acquisition time and improves depth accuracy in single-photon active imaging systems.

Findings

Fast acquisition of accurate 3D images despite background noise

Adaptive dwell time improves imaging efficiency

Effective in low-light and high-noise environments

Abstract

For active optical imaging, the use of single-photon detectors can greatly improve the detection sensitivity of the system. However, the traditional maximum-likelihood based imaging method needs a long acquisition time to capture clear three-dimensional (3D) image in low light-level. To tackle this problem, we present a novel imaging method for depth estimate, which can obtain the accurate 3D image in a short acquisition time. Our method combines the photon-count statistics with the temporal correlations of the reflected signal. According to the characteristics of the target surface, including the surface reflectivity, our method is capable of adaptively changing the dwell time in each pixel. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can fast obtain the accurate depth image despite the existence of strong background noise.