SiN-on-SOI Optical Phased Array LiDAR for Ultra-Wide Field of View and 4D Sensing

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel SiN-on-SOI optical phased array LiDAR with a record 160-degree field of view, enabling high-precision 3D imaging and 4D sensing for autonomous vehicles through innovative antenna and Vernier concepts.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new OPA design combining chained grating antennas and Vernier principles, achieving ultra-wide FoV and uniform beam quality for 3D and 4D LiDAR applications.

Findings

Achieved 160-degree FoV with less than 3-dB power variation.

Demonstrated 5.5-mm ranging accuracy.

First experimental Vernier OPA LiDAR for 3D imaging.

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) imaging techniques are facilitating the autonomous vehicles to build intelligent system. Optical phased arrays (OPAs) featured by all solid-state configurations are becoming a promising solution for 3D imaging. However, majority of state-of-art OPAs commonly suffer from severe power degradation at the edge of field of view (FoV), resulting in limited effective FoV and deteriorating 3D imaging quality. Here, we synergize chained grating antenna and vernier concept to design a novel OPA for realizing a record wide 160{\deg}-FoV 3D imaging. By virtue of the chained antenna, the OPA exhibits less than 3-dB beam power variation within the 160{\deg} FoV. In addition, two OPAs with different pitch are integrated monolithically to form a quasi-coaxial Vernier OPA transceiver. With the aid of flat beam power profile provided by the chained antennas, the OPA exhibits uniform beam quality at an arbitrary steering angle. The superior beam steering performance enables the OPA to accomplish 160{\deg} wide-FoV 3D imaging based on the frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) LiDAR scheme. The ranging accuracy is 5.5-mm. Moreover, the OPA is also applied to velocity measurement for 4D sensing. To our best knowledge, it is the first experimental implementation of a Vernier OPA LiDAR on 3D imaging to achieve a remarkable FoV.