High-speed airborne single-photon LiDAR with GHz-gated single-photon detector at 1550 nm

We report a high-speed airborne single-photon counting LiDAR at 1550 nm. By using a quasi-continuous Geigermode single-photon detector with sinusoidal gating waves at 1-GHz with a 1-MHz repetition rate pulsed laser as the emitting source, a point cloud rate of 1.4 x 106 points per second was obtained at the average flight height of 620 m, while the receiving aperture of the LiDAR was only 15.3 mm. To preclude the background data in the daylight which was about 30 times higher than the signal data, we proposed a processing algorithm based on the difference of signal and noise in density distribution to distill the three-dimension information of the targets. The clear reconstructed image indicates the airborne LiDAR and its data processing algorithm were qualified for terrain mapping and three-dimensional city modeling.

Automated summary

A high-speed airborne single-photon counting LiDAR operating at 1550 nm was developed, achieving a point cloud rate of 1.4 x 106 points per second with a 1-MHz repetition rate pulsed laser. The LiDAR utilized a quasi-continuous Geigermode single-photon detector, and a processing algorithm based on the difference of signal and noise in density distribution was proposed to distill the three-dimensional information of the targets, demonstrating its suitability for terrain mapping and three-dimensional city modeling.