Fourier-basis active structured illumination sensing lidar imaging using crossed acousto-optic devices.

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Remote Sensing
• Computational Imaging

Background:

• Lidar technology enables remote sensing but often faces limitations in resolution and computational complexity.
• Structured illumination techniques enhance imaging by introducing patterned light, but traditional methods can be redundant or inefficient.

Purpose of the Study:

• To experimentally demonstrate and mathematically formulate a novel computational lidar remote-imaging scheme called Fourier-basis active structured illumination sensing (F-BASIS).
• To utilize structured-light traveling-fringe projection for enhanced spatial information acquisition in lidar systems.

Main Methods:

• Generation of a nearly non-redundant array of frequency-shifted beams using cascaded acousto-optic deflectors.
• Creation of O(K^4) unique traveling-wave sinusoidal interference fringes through pairwise beam interference.
• Detection of backscattered light and temporal Fourier transform for demodulating RF temporal beat notes.

Main Results:

• Successful experimental demonstration of the F-BASIS technique.
• Encoding of spatial Fourier component amplitude and phase in RF temporal beat notes.
• Reconstruction of 2D lidar images via spatial Fourier synthesis from acquired Fourier coefficients.

Conclusions:

• F-BASIS offers a computationally efficient and highly parallelized approach to lidar imaging.
• The technique effectively maps spatial information to the temporal frequency domain, enabling high-fidelity image reconstruction.
• This work advances computational imaging and remote sensing capabilities through innovative structured illumination.