Nishiwaki Seiji
Technology Division, Panasonic Corporation, 3-1-1 Yagumo-nakamachi, Moriguchi City, Osaka, 570 - 8501, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jul 20;11(1):14767. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-94208-2.
Sophisticated non-mechanical technology for LIDARs is needed to realize safe autonomous cars. We have confirmed the operating principle of a non-mechanical LIDAR by combining concentric circular-grating couplers (CGCs) with a coaxially aligned rod lens. Laser light incident vertically on the center of the inner CGC along the center axis of the lens is radiated from the outer CGC and passes through the side surface of the lens. It is converted to a parallel beam that scans in two axes by applying voltages to two area-segmented electrode layers sandwiching the CGCs and a liquid crystal layer formed on the CGCs. We have demonstrated scanning whose motion ranges were 360 degrees horizontally and 10° vertically. A beam with a spread angle of 0.3° × 0.8° at a minimum swept vertically up to a frequency of 100 Hz and ten equally spaced beams scanned rotationally with a 6-degree cycle variation of spread of between 0.8° and 3.5°.
要实现安全的自动驾驶汽车，需要用于激光雷达的先进非机械技术。我们通过将同心圆形光栅耦合器（CGC）与同轴对准的棒状透镜相结合，证实了一种非机械激光雷达的工作原理。沿透镜中心轴垂直入射到内部CGC中心的激光从外部CGC射出，并穿过透镜的侧面。通过向夹着CGC的两个区域分割电极层以及形成在CGC上的液晶层施加电压，它被转换为在两个轴上扫描的平行光束。我们已经演示了水平运动范围为360度、垂直运动范围为10°的扫描。一束最小发散角为0.3°×0.8°的光束垂直向上扫描，最高频率为100 Hz，十束等间距光束以6度的周期变化旋转扫描，发散范围在0.8°至3.5°之间。
