LIDAR Comprising Polyhedron Transmission and Receiving Scanning Element
A LIDAR system having a rotating geometric solid polyhedron reflective scanning and receiving element disposed on a rotation table element. The system is configured for scanning a transmitted electromagnetic beam such as a laser beam over a scene of interest in both elevation and azimuth and for receiving a reflected portion of the transmitted beam onto the focal plane detector array of the invention and to output an (x, y, range) set of point cloud coordinate image data.
1 . An electronic LIDAR imaging system comprising:
an electromagnetic radiation source for transmitting an electromagnetic beam in a predetermined range of the electromagnetic spectrum,
a scanning element comprising at least one substantially flat and electromagnetically reflective facet disposed about a perimeter of the scanning element,
the scanning element configured to rotate about a first axis in a first direction whereby the transmitted beam is scanned in the first direction across a scene by the facet,
a rotation table configured to rotate and scan the transmitted beam across the scene in a direction substantially orthogonal to the first direction, and,
a focal plane detector array for converting a reflected portion of the beam from the scene from the facet into a detector output signal.
2 . The LIDAR system of claim 1 configured to output a point cloud set of image data with (x, y, range) coordinates values.
3 . The LIDAR system of claim 1 wherein the scanning element comprises a geometric solid polyhedron reflective scanning and receiving element.
4 . The LIDAR system of claim 3 wherein the scanning element comprises at least five electromagnetically reflective facets.