I-Corps: Non-mechanical scanning for laser ranging

I-Corps：用于激光测距的非机械扫描

• 批准号: 2244845
• 负责人: Juliet Gopinath
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-12-01 至 2023-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2244845&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Non; mechanical; scanning; laser

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of an incoherent light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system using non-mechanical beam steering with adaptive optical elements based on electrowetting optics. The proposed technology may enable a new generation of systems that are able to adapt to changing conditions and targets. The team will investigate applications such as mapping, agriculture, energy and environmental studies, and more recently, for autonomous navigation and collision avoidance for self-driving cars, drones, and satellites. These applications are all crucial to societal function today. For example, surveying the snow pack can be important for hydroelectric power and drinking water estimates. Other important applications include mapping coastlines as well as determining the health of agricultural crops and trees to predict yields as well as fire risks. Unlike conventional LIDAR systems, the proposed LIDAR design has operational lifetime orders of magnitude longer due to non-mechanical components. This I-Corps project is based on the development of an incoherent light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system using large angle nonmechanical beam steering with electrowetting optical components. The key innovation uses adaptive electrowetting optics, in which the shape of a liquid droplet to be controlled with applied voltage. This phenomenon enables electrically tunable lenses (variable spot size and divergence), prisms (variable steering), and custom-designed optical surfaces (variable wavefront). Two lenses, or a prism, can provide a small amount of steering (few degrees). When this is followed by a miniature fisheye lens, the result is a beam scanning system suitable for LIDAR. With a typical prism scan range of 5o, results have demonstrated nonmechanical beam steering through 180o in two dimensions using a system design with an adjustable spot size and the ability to make patterned beams at speeds of up to 200 Hz. In addition, the proposed technology uses a small ~mm-scale scanner (electrowetting devices and additional optics), low electrical power consumption (mW typical), good optical quality (comparable to fixed microlenses), ability to match a changing situation by tuning spot size and angle, and aberration compensation and adjustable spot size to track an object.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该 I-Corps 项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发非相干光探测和测距 (LIDAR) 系统，该系统使用非机械光束控制和基于电润湿光学的自适应光学元件。 所提出的技术可能使新一代系统能够适应不断变化的条件和目标。 该团队将研究测绘、农业、能源和环境研究等应用，以及最近的自动驾驶汽车、无人机和卫星的自主导航和防撞应用。 这些应用对于当今的社会功能都至关重要。 例如，测量积雪对于水力发电和饮用水估算非常重要。 其他重要应用包括绘制海岸线以及确定农作物和树木的健康状况以预测产量和火灾风险。与传统的激光雷达系统不同，由于采用了非机械部件，所提出的激光雷达设计的使用寿命延长了几个数量级。 该 I-Corps 项目基于非相干光探测和测距 (LIDAR) 系统的开发，该系统使用大角度非机械光束控制和电润湿光学组件。关键创新采用自适应电润湿光学器件，其中液滴的形状通过施加的电压进行控制。这种现象使得电可调透镜（可变光斑尺寸和发散度）、棱镜（可变转向）和定制设计的光学表面（可变波前）成为可能。两个透镜或一个棱镜可以提供少量的转向（几度）。当其后配备微型鱼眼镜头时，就形成了适用于激光雷达的光束扫描系统。典型的棱镜扫描范围为 5o，结果表明，使用具有可调节光斑尺寸的系统设计，可以在二维中实现 180o 的非机械光束转向，并且能够以高达 200 Hz 的速度形成图案光束。 此外，所提出的技术使用小型〜毫米级扫描仪（电润湿设备和附加光学器件），功耗低（典型值mW），良好的光学质量（与固定微透镜相比），能够通过调整光斑来匹配不断变化的情况该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。