阅读说明：本技术 一种消除串扰的激光雷达装置及方法 (Laser radar device and method for eliminating crosstalk ) 是由 陈志远 俞坤治 黄晓林 李成 刘高 于 2021-01-04 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明提供一种消除串扰的激光雷达装置及方法。该激光雷达装置包括：时序生成模块,用于产生激光重频时序脉冲；调制信号产生模块,用于产生调制信号；激光重频调变器,用于对激光重频时序脉冲进行调制得到激光发射信号；激光发射器,用于根据接收到的激光发射信号发射激光信号；激光接收器,用于接收激光信号从目标反射的激光回波,并产生触发信号；时间数字转换模块,用于将激光发射信号作为起始信号,将触发信号作为终止信号,并产生终止信号与起始信号的时间差值；数字信号处理与存储模块接收并存储该时间差值,并将时间差值转换为包含距离信息的三维点云数据；信号输出模块用于将该三维点云数据进行输出。(The invention provides a laser radar device and a method for eliminating crosstalk. The laser radar apparatus includes: the time sequence generation module is used for generating laser repetition frequency time sequence pulses; the modulation signal generation module is used for generating a modulation signal; the laser repetition frequency modulator is used for modulating the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse to obtain a laser emission signal; the laser transmitter is used for transmitting a laser signal according to the received laser transmitting signal; the laser receiver is used for receiving laser echoes reflected by the laser signals from the target and generating trigger signals; the time-to-digital conversion module is used for taking the laser emission signal as an initial signal, taking the trigger signal as a termination signal and generating a time difference value between the termination signal and the initial signal; the digital signal processing and storing module receives and stores the time difference value and converts the time difference value into three-dimensional point cloud data containing distance information; the signal output module is used for outputting the three-dimensional point cloud data.)

1. A laser radar apparatus for crosstalk cancellation, comprising:

the time sequence generation module is used for generating laser repetition frequency time sequence pulses;

the modulation signal generation module is used for generating a modulation signal, and the modulation signal is a group of random number sequences;

the laser repetition frequency modulator is used for receiving the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse and the modulation signal and modulating the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse to obtain a laser emission signal;

the laser transmitter is used for receiving the laser emission signal from the laser repetition frequency modulator and transmitting the laser signal according to the received laser emission signal;

the laser receiver is used for receiving laser echoes reflected by the laser signals from the target and generating trigger signals;

the time-to-digital conversion module is used for receiving a laser emission signal from the laser repetition frequency modulator as an initial signal, receiving a trigger signal from the laser receiver as an end signal and generating a time difference value between the end signal and the initial signal;

the digital signal processing and storing module receives and stores the time difference value and converts the time difference value into three-dimensional point cloud data containing distance information;

the signal output module is used for outputting the three-dimensional point cloud data.

2. The lidar apparatus of claim 1, wherein the modulation signal generation module is a true random number generator or a pseudo random number generator.

3. The lidar apparatus of claim 1, wherein the plurality of lidar apparatus are configured to generate different random number sequences when used simultaneously.

4. The lidar apparatus of claim 1, wherein the laser transmitter comprises a laser driver and a laser diode, and the laser driver is configured to cause the laser diode to emit a laser signal to the detection target according to the determined modulation scheme.

5. The lidar apparatus of claim 4, wherein the modulation mode of the laser driver comprises one of: pulse patterns with adjustable pulse width, or continuous wave patterns emitted as triangular, sinusoidal, or square waves.

6. The lidar apparatus of claim 4, wherein the laser diode comprises one of: vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, surface emitting laser diodes, and edge emitting laser diodes.

7. The lidar apparatus of claim 1, wherein the laser receiver comprises a single photon detector pixel array and a pixel control circuit, the single photon detector pixel array and the pixel control circuit comprising an array of pixels, each pixel comprising a single photon detector and its pixel control circuit.

8. The lidar apparatus of claim 8, wherein the time-to-digital conversion module comprises a plurality of time-to-digital converters, each time-to-digital converter configured to couple to a single photon detector pixel and receive a laser emission signal from a laser re-frequency modulator.

9. A method of laser radar cross talk cancellation for use in a lidar device according to any of claims 1-8, comprising the steps of:

generating a laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse and a modulation signal;

modulating the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse to generate a laser emission signal;

transmitting the laser emission signal to a laser emitter and a time-to-digital conversion module;

enabling the laser transmitter to transmit a laser signal according to the laser transmitting signal, and enabling the time-to-digital conversion module to start timing according to the laser transmitting signal;

the laser receiver receives the laser echo, generates a trigger signal and sends the trigger signal to the time-to-digital conversion module;

the time-to-digital conversion module stops timing according to the received trigger signal and transmits a time difference value from the start of timing to the stop of timing to the digital signal processing and storage module.

10. The method for canceling lidar crosstalk according to claim 9, further comprising the steps of:

the digital signal processing and storing module receives and stores the time difference value, converts the time difference value into three-dimensional point cloud data containing distance information, and transmits the three-dimensional point cloud data to the signal output module;

the signal output module is used for outputting the three-dimensional point cloud data.

Technical Field

The invention relates to the field of laser radar detection, in particular to a laser radar device and a method for eliminating crosstalk.

Background

Laser radar is a range finding sensor commonly used, has characteristics such as detection range is far away, resolution ratio is high, receive environmental impact less, and the wide application is in fields such as intelligent robot, unmanned aerial vehicle, unmanned driving, location navigation, space survey and drawing, security protection.

The laser ranging radar system generally comprises a laser emitting module, a photosensitive device, a TDC module (time-to-digital conversion module), a DSP module (digital signal processing module) and a data interface part. The laser ranging radar system has the working mode that the laser emitting module emits laser after receiving the emitted laser signal, the photosensitive device responds to the returned laser signal and generates an electric signal, the emitted laser signal is a starting signal of the time-to-digital conversion module, and the generated electric signal is a stopping signal of the time-to-digital conversion module. And transmitting the locking value of the time-to-digital conversion module to the digital signal processing module to provide operation data for the digital signal processing module. After multiple signal acquisitions, the digital signal processing module outputs operational information. Because the photosensitive device has the characteristic of random triggering, the data of the general time-to-digital conversion module is stored through the histogram after being collected, and the histogram is subjected to post-processing (such as moving average) to reduce noise in the histogram. Then, the system performs peak searching operation according to the processed histogram, and finds the bin corresponding to the highest value, so as to calculate the depth information corresponding to the returned laser signal.

However, when there are multiple lidar in the environment, the peak finding operation has significant problems: when the emission light signal of the lidar a is captured by another lidar B, the signal will be regarded as a real signal by the lidar B and recorded in the histogram, which is mixed with the emission light signal of the lidar B, and is difficult to distinguish, thereby causing crosstalk. Especially, when the transmitting light signal of the lidar a is larger than the transmitting light signal of the lidar B, the peak searching operation may mistakenly take the transmitting light signal of the lidar a as a real signal, resulting in an erroneous ranging result.

The general solution to the laser crosstalk is: at each measurement, a group of modulation signals (delta t) are randomly generated from the interior of the laser radar and added into the laser repetition frequency (the period of the laser repetition frequency is t), and the emission period of the laser transmitter is as follows:

T=t+Δt (1)

however, the time-to-digital conversion module still takes the period t of the laser repetition frequency as its timing period. Therefore, in this system, when the light sensing device receives the echo reflection, the timing output time of the time-to-digital conversion module is:

t _ TDC (modulation) = TOF + Δ T (2)

Tof (time Of flight) is the time Of flight Of the laser.

Since Δ t is generated inside the lidar system and is known by the system, the time of flight of the laser can be obtained by subtracting Δ t from the time output time of the time-to-digital conversion module,

t _ TDC (demodulation) = T _ TDC (modulation) - Δ T = TOF (3)

After analyzing the above process, we find that the following problems exist in the method for solving the laser radar crosstalk: first, according to the above formula (3), since the demodulation process is after the time-to-digital conversion module has timed out, the measured TOF accuracy is limited by the time-to-digital conversion module, and even if the accuracy of the modulation signal (Δ t) is high, the TOF accuracy is limited by the accuracy of the time-to-digital conversion module in the formula (3), thereby reducing the crosstalk suppression capability. Secondly, as can be seen from the above formula (2), when the time-to-digital conversion module performs the timing output, the timing of the modulation signal (Δ t) is included, so that the modulation signal (Δ t) will sacrifice part of the range of the time-to-digital conversion module, and reduce the original ranging range. In addition, in order to obtain the time of flight TOF of the laser, the calculation of the formula (3) needs to be completed, so that additional mathematical operation is added, the hardware requirement and power consumption on a DSP module are increased, the cost is further increased, and especially for a laser radar system under multi-channel operation, the increase of hardware resources is more severe.

Therefore, a method for eliminating laser radar crosstalk is needed, in which the modulation signal precision is not limited by the time-to-digital conversion module, the calculation of the digital signal processing module is not required to be increased, so that the hardware cost is increased, and the measurement range of the time-to-digital conversion module is not affected.

Disclosure of Invention

In order to solve the above technical problem, the present invention provides a method for eliminating laser radar crosstalk. The method can solve the problem of ranging error caused by mutual crosstalk between laser radars under multi-machine application, the modulation signal precision in the method is not limited by a time-to-digital conversion module, the calculation of a digital signal processing module is not required to be increased, the hardware cost is further increased, and the measuring range of the time-to-digital conversion module cannot be reduced by adopting the method. In addition, in the laser radar system corresponding to the method for eliminating laser radar crosstalk, only the architecture of the front-end circuit of the existing laser radar system needs to be adjusted, and the matching of back-end hardware and an algorithm is not needed, so that the hardware resources are saved, and the cost is reduced.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a laser radar apparatus for eliminating crosstalk, including: the time sequence generation module is used for generating laser repetition frequency time sequence pulses; the modulation signal generation module is used for generating a modulation signal, and the modulation signal is a group of random number sequences; the laser repetition frequency modulator is used for receiving the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse and the modulation signal and modulating the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse to obtain a laser emission signal; the laser transmitter is used for receiving the laser emission signal from the laser repetition frequency modulator and transmitting the laser signal according to the received laser emission signal; the laser receiver is used for receiving laser echoes reflected by the laser signals from the target and generating trigger signals; the time-to-digital conversion module is used for receiving a laser emission signal from the laser repetition frequency modulator as an initial signal, receiving a trigger signal from the laser receiver as an end signal and generating a time difference value between the end signal and the initial signal; the digital signal processing and storing module receives and stores the time difference value and converts the time difference value into three-dimensional point cloud data containing distance information; the signal output module is used for outputting the three-dimensional point cloud data. The laser radar device has the following advantages: (1) the laser radar device can achieve the purpose of eliminating laser radar crosstalk only by performing architecture adjustment in a front-end circuit, and the device system is simpler; (2) the time-to-digital conversion module records the laser flight time, so the precision of the modulation signal is not limited by the precision of the time-to-digital conversion module; (3) the time-to-digital conversion module records the laser flight time, so that the time difference value recorded by the time-to-digital conversion module does not need to be demodulated, an additional modulation decoder and calculated amount do not need to be added to obtain the laser flight time, and the hardware cost and the power consumption are reduced; (4) in the laser radar device, the signals of the laser transmitter and the time-to-digital conversion module are synchronous, and the measuring range of the time-to-digital conversion module is not influenced.

Preferably, the modulation signal generation module is a true random number generator or a pseudo random number generator.

Preferably, when a plurality of lidar means are used simultaneously, the random number sequences generated by different lidar means are different.

Preferably, the laser transmitter includes a laser driver and a laser diode, and the laser driver is responsible for enabling the laser diode to send out a laser signal to the detection target according to the formulated modulation mode.

Preferably, the modulation mode of the laser driver comprises one of the following: pulse patterns with adjustable pulse width, or continuous wave patterns emitted as triangular, sinusoidal, or square waves.

Preferably, the laser diode comprises one of: vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, surface emitting laser diodes, and edge emitting laser diodes.

Preferably, the laser receiver comprises a single photon detector pixel array and a pixel control circuit, the single photon detector pixel array and the pixel control circuit comprise an array formed by a plurality of pixels, and each pixel comprises a single photon detector and a pixel control circuit thereof.

Preferably, the time-to-digital conversion module comprises a plurality of time-to-digital converters, each time-to-digital converter being adapted to be connected to a single-photon detector pixel and to receive a laser emission signal from a laser re-frequency modulator.

The invention also provides a method for eliminating laser radar crosstalk, which is characterized by comprising the following steps: generating a laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse and a modulation signal; modulating the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse to generate a laser emission signal; transmitting the laser emission signal to a laser emitter and a time-to-digital conversion module; enabling the laser transmitter to transmit a laser signal according to the laser transmitting signal, and enabling the time-to-digital conversion module to start timing according to the laser transmitting signal; the laser receiver receives the laser echo, generates a trigger signal and sends the trigger signal to the time-to-digital conversion module; the time-to-digital conversion module stops timing according to the received trigger signal and transmits a time difference value from the start of timing to the stop of timing to the digital signal processing and storage module.

Preferably, the digital signal processing and storing module receives and stores the time difference, converts the time difference into three-dimensional point cloud data containing distance information, and transmits the three-dimensional point cloud data to the signal output module; the signal output module is used for outputting the three-dimensional point cloud data.

The method for eliminating the laser radar crosstalk has the following advantages that: the situation that crosstalk is caused when a plurality of laser radars are used in the same scene can be effectively solved; in addition, in the method, the laser emitter and the time-to-digital conversion module start signal synchronization, and the laser flight time is obtained without extra calculation, so that the calculation amount is reduced; and the time difference value measured by the time-to-digital conversion module is the laser flight time, so that the measuring range and the ranging range of the time-to-digital conversion module cannot be reduced due to elimination of laser radar crosstalk.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a lidar apparatus without crosstalk cancellation.

Fig. 2 shows the integration results of N measurements when a plurality of laser radar apparatuses without crosstalk cancellation are simultaneously operated.

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of a conventional laser radar apparatus for eliminating crosstalk.

Fig. 4 shows the integration result of N measurements of the lidar apparatus of fig. 3.

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of a laser radar apparatus for eliminating laser radar crosstalk according to the present invention.

Fig. 6 shows the integration results of N measurements of the lidar apparatus of fig. 5.

Fig. 7 is a flowchart of a method for eliminating laser radar crosstalk according to the present invention.

Detailed Description

The technical means adopted by the invention to achieve the predetermined object of the invention are further described below with reference to the drawings and the preferred embodiments of the invention.

As shown in fig. 1, fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a laser radar apparatus without crosstalk cancellation. The laser radar device comprises the following hardware modules: the system comprises a laser transmitter 101, a laser receiver 102, a timing generation module 103, a time-to-digital conversion module 104, a digital signal processing and storage module 105 and a signal output module 106. The timing sequence generation module 103 is configured to transmit a laser repetition frequency timing sequence pulse according to a timing transmission strategy of the laser radar, and output the laser repetition frequency timing sequence pulse to the laser transmitter 101 and the time-to-digital conversion module 104. The laser transmitter 101 is configured to receive the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse transmitted by the time sequence generating module 103, and transmit a laser signal according to the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse. The laser receiver 102 is configured to receive a laser echo reflected by a laser signal from a target, generate a trigger signal at the same time, and send the trigger signal to the time-to-digital conversion module 104. The time-to-digital conversion module 104 receives the laser repetition frequency timing pulse as a start signal, receives the trigger signal generated by the laser receiver 102 as a stop signal, generates a time difference value from the start signal to the stop signal, and transmits the time difference value to the digital signal processing and storage module 105. The digital signal processing and storage module 105 receives and stores the time difference and converts the time difference into three-dimensional point cloud data containing distance information. The signal output module 106 is configured to output the three-dimensional point cloud data.

Fig. 1 shows a typical lidar apparatus, which does not include a crosstalk cancellation hardware module. When a plurality of such lidar devices are operated together in the vicinity, the laser echo reflected from the target may cause interference with other lidar devices. Fig. 2 shows the integration results of N measurements when a plurality of laser radar apparatuses without crosstalk cancellation are simultaneously operated. When the laser radar device without crosstalk elimination works, the laser transmitter 101 transmits a laser signal at the time of T0, and the time-to-digital conversion module 104 receives a laser repetition frequency timing pulse signal at the time of T0 to start timing. Each time a laser echo is received, the laser receiver 102 generates a trigger signal to stop the time-to-digital conversion module 104. However, the laser receiver 102 cannot determine whether the received echo signal is a laser signal transmitted by the local laser receiver or a laser signal transmitted by another laser transmitter, and at this time, a crosstalk phenomenon may occur. When the crosstalk signal is large, the crosstalk signal may be larger than the real signal, as shown by a dotted line in fig. 2, when the digital signal processing and storing module 105 convolves the N-times summed histogram with time, the peak value of the crosstalk signal will be larger than the real signal, which causes a peak finding judgment error and further causes a distance measurement error.

Fig. 3 shows a conventional laser radar apparatus for eliminating crosstalk. The laser radar device comprises the following hardware modules: the laser modulation system comprises a laser transmitter 101, a laser receiver 102, a timing generation module 103, a time-to-digital conversion module 104, a digital signal processing and storage module 105, a signal output module 106, a modulation signal generation module 107, a laser re-frequency modulator 108 and a modulation decoder 109. When the laser radar apparatus works, firstly, the timing generation module 103 generates a laser repetition frequency timing pulse, and outputs the laser repetition frequency timing pulse to the time-to-digital conversion module 104 and the laser repetition frequency modulator 108, and at the same time, the modulation signal generation module 107 generates a group of random numbers as a modulation signal during each measurement, and sends the group of random numbers to the laser repetition frequency modulator 108 and the modulation decoder 109. After receiving the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse and the modulation signal, the laser repetition frequency modulator 108 modulates the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse to obtain a laser emission signal, and outputs the laser emission signal to the laser transmitter 101. The laser transmitter 101 transmits a laser signal after receiving the laser emission signal. The laser receiver 102 is configured to receive a laser echo reflected by a laser signal from a target, generate a trigger signal at the same time, and send the trigger signal to the time-to-digital conversion module 104. The time-to-digital conversion module 104 receives the laser repetition frequency timing pulse as a start signal, receives the trigger signal generated by the laser receiver 102 as an end signal, generates a time difference from the start signal to the end signal, and transmits the time difference to the modulation decoder 109. The modulation decoder 109 demodulates the time difference output by the time-to-digital conversion module 104, and subtracts the modulation signal generated by the modulation signal generation module 107 from the time difference, so as to obtain the laser flight time. The digital signal processing and storage module 105 receives and stores the laser flight time and converts the laser flight time into three-dimensional point cloud data containing distance information. The signal output module 106 is configured to output the three-dimensional point cloud data.

Compared with the lidar device in fig. 1, the lidar device in fig. 3 has the modulation signal generation module 107, the laser repetition frequency modulator 108 and the modulation decoder 109 added, at this time, the laser transmitter 101 transmits a laser signal according to the laser emission signal generated by the laser repetition frequency modulator 108, instead of the laser repetition frequency timing pulse generated by the timing generation module 103, the time-to-digital conversion module 104 still uses the laser repetition frequency timing pulse generated by the timing generation module 103 as a starting signal, which results in that the time difference recorded in the time-to-digital conversion module 104 is no longer the laser flight time, but the sum of the modulation signal time and the laser flight time. Therefore, the time difference recorded by the time-to-digital conversion module 104 needs to be demodulated, and the modulated signal time is subtracted to obtain the laser flight time.

Fig. 4 shows the integration result of N measurements of the lidar apparatus of fig. 3. As can be seen from fig. 4, the start time of the time-to-digital conversion module (TDC) is fixed, but the laser firing time T0 is random. In this mechanism for eliminating crosstalk, the laser emission time is controlled by the laser re-frequency modulator 108, and the laser re-frequency modulator 108 will generate a set of different delays (Δ t) for each measurement, so that the laser emission time can be considered to be random. After N integrations, we can see that the crosstalk signal is not attenuated in the histogram before demodulation, but after demodulation, the energy of the crosstalk signal is greatly reduced and does not interfere with the real signal. The device can successfully achieve the purpose of eliminating crosstalk. However, the laser radar apparatus in fig. 3 has the following problems: (1) we use the time difference recorded by the time-to-digital conversion module 104 to subtract the modulation signal time, so the accuracy of the modulation signal is limited by the accuracy of the time-to-digital conversion module. When the precision of the time-to-digital conversion module is not improved, the suppression capability of crosstalk cannot be increased even if the precision of the modulation signal is increased. Therefore, in this laser radar apparatus, the accuracy of the modulation signal is limited by the accuracy of the time-to-digital conversion module, and the suppression capability of the modulation signal against crosstalk is reduced. (2) As can be seen from fig. 4, the starting time of the time-to-digital conversion module 104 is fixed, but the laser emission time T0 is random, so that the time-to-digital conversion module 104 does not time the flight time of the laser from the starting time to the laser emission time T0, which is wasted, thereby reducing the measurement range of the time-to-digital conversion module 104 and reducing the range measurement range. (3) When calculating the laser flight time, the time difference recorded by the time-to-digital conversion module 104 is required to subtract the modulation signal time, which adds additional digital operation, increases the hardware cost and power consumption of the laser radar apparatus, and the problem becomes more severe especially in multi-channel operation.

Fig. 5 is a laser radar apparatus for eliminating laser radar crosstalk according to the present invention. The laser radar device comprises the following hardware modules: the system comprises a laser transmitter 101, a laser receiver 102, a timing generation module 103, a time-to-digital conversion module 104, a digital signal processing and storage module 105, a signal output module 106, a modulation signal generation module 107 and a laser re-frequency modulator 108. When the laser radar apparatus works, firstly, the timing generation module 103 generates a laser repetition frequency timing pulse and outputs the laser repetition frequency timing pulse to the laser repetition frequency modulator 108, and meanwhile, the modulation signal generation module 107 generates a group of random number sequences as modulation signals during each measurement and sends the group of random numbers to the laser repetition frequency modulator 108. The modulation signal generation module 107 may be a true random number generator or a pseudo random number generator, but is not limited thereto. In practical applications, when multiple lidar devices are used simultaneously, the random number sequences generated by different lidar devices are different. After receiving the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse and the modulation signal, the laser repetition frequency modulator 108 modulates the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse to obtain a laser emission signal, and outputs the laser emission signal to the laser emitter 101 and the time-to-digital conversion module 104. The laser transmitter 101 transmits a laser signal after receiving the laser emission signal. The laser receiver 102 is configured to receive a laser echo reflected by a laser signal from a target, generate a trigger signal, and send the trigger signal to the time-to-digital conversion module 104. The time-to-digital conversion module 104 receives the laser emission signal as a start signal, receives the trigger signal generated by the laser receiver 102 as a stop signal, generates a time difference value from the start signal to the stop signal, and transmits the time difference value to the digital signal processing and storage module 105. According to the working process, the time difference is the laser flight time. The digital signal processing and storage module 105 receives and stores the time difference and converts the time difference into three-dimensional point cloud data containing distance information. The signal output module 106 is configured to output the three-dimensional point cloud data.

Specifically, the laser transmitter 101 includes a laser driver and a laser diode, and the laser driver is responsible for enabling the laser diode to emit a laser signal to the detection target according to the specified modulation mode. The laser diode may be a Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL), a Surface Emitting Laser (SEL) diode, an Edge Emitting Laser (EEL) diode, or other types of laser diodes. The present invention is not limited to the kind of laser diode. The laser driver can modulate the emission of the laser diode, such as a pulse mode with adjustable pulse width (pulse width), or a Continuous Wave (CW) mode emitted by a triangular wave, a sinusoidal wave, or a square wave. The present invention does not limit the modulation and demodulation modes of the laser signal emitted by the laser diode. The laser receiver 102 includes a single photon detector pixel array and a pixel control circuit, where the single photon detector pixel array and the pixel control circuit include an array of multiple pixels, and each pixel includes a single photon detector and its pixel control circuit. The pixel control circuit may adjust the gain value of the corresponding single photon detector low to reduce interference from background glare. In other embodiments, multiple single photon detectors may be grouped into larger logical pixels. Each logical pixel may correspond to a logical pixel control circuit. An array of these pixels or logical pixels can be used to obtain the details of the target. When the pixel control circuit or the logic pixel control circuit detects the interference of the background strong light, such as the interference from the sunlight or other laser light sources, the gain value of the corresponding single-photon detector can be controlled to reduce the interference phenomenon. The pixel control circuit or the logic pixel control circuit can comprise a sunlight background light shielding circuit for filtering out measurement errors and system signal-to-noise ratio attenuation caused by triggering the single photon detector by background strong light. Each single photon detector, after receiving a single photon, requires quenching (Quench) and reset (reset) operations to be able to detect the next photon. Therefore, each single photon detector further comprises a high-speed quenching and resetting circuit so as to reduce the deadlock time after the single photon detector receives a single photon and improve the detection efficiency. The time-to-digital conversion module 104 includes a plurality of time-to-digital converters, each for connecting to a single photon detector pixel or a logic pixel as described above and receiving a laser emission signal from the laser re-frequency modulator 108. The digital signal processing and storing module is used for storing the received time difference values, wherein the time difference values are stored in a histogram mode, then peak searching operation is carried out on the histogram, and the bin corresponding to the highest peak value is found, so that the corresponding distance information can be calculated.

The lidar apparatus of fig. 5 differs from the lidar apparatus of fig. 3 in that: the time-to-digital conversion module 104 uses the laser emission signal emitted by the laser repetition frequency modulator 108 as the initial signal, rather than the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse generated by the time sequence generation module 103, so that the time difference recorded by the time-to-digital conversion module 104 is the laser flight time, and it is no longer necessary to add a modulation decoder at the back end to demodulate the time difference recorded by the time-to-digital conversion module 104. Therefore, the laser radar device only needs to carry out framework adjustment on the front-end circuit, does not need the cooperation of back-end hardware and an algorithm, and reduces the hardware cost. Meanwhile, in the laser radar device, the time-to-digital conversion module 104 records the laser flight time, so that the measuring range and the ranging range are not reduced.

Fig. 6 shows the integration results of N measurements of the lidar apparatus of fig. 5. As can be seen from fig. 5, the laser emission time T0 is random, and the start time of the time-to-digital conversion module 104 is synchronized with the laser emission time T0. In the lidar apparatus, the laser emission time and the start time of the time-to-digital conversion module are both controlled by the laser re-frequency modulator 108, and the laser re-frequency modulator 108 will generate a set of different delays (Δ t) for each measurement, so that the laser emission time can be considered to be random. After N integrations, we can see that the energy of the crosstalk signal in the histogram is greatly reduced, and the energy of the real signal is not reduced.

The laser radar device has the following advantages that: (1) the laser radar device only needs to carry out architecture adjustment in the front-end circuit, so that the aim of eliminating laser radar crosstalk can be fulfilled, and the device system is simpler; (2) the time-to-digital conversion module 104 records the laser flight time, so the precision of the modulation signal is not limited by the precision of the time-to-digital conversion module; (3) the time-to-digital conversion module 104 records the laser flight time, so that the time difference value recorded by the time-to-digital conversion module does not need to be demodulated, an additional modulation decoder and calculated amount do not need to be added to obtain the laser flight time, and the hardware cost and the power consumption are reduced; (4) in the laser radar device, the signals of the laser transmitter and the time-to-digital conversion module are synchronous, and the measuring range of the time-to-digital conversion module is not influenced.

As shown in fig. 7, the present invention further provides a method for eliminating laser radar crosstalk, which is used in conjunction with the laser radar apparatus of the present invention. The method comprises the following steps: generating a laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse and a modulation signal; modulating the laser repetition frequency time sequence pulse to generate a laser emission signal; transmitting the laser emission signal to a laser emitter and a time-to-digital conversion module; enabling the laser transmitter to transmit a laser signal according to the laser transmitting signal, and enabling the time-to-digital conversion module to start timing according to the laser transmitting signal; the laser receiver receives the laser echo, generates a trigger signal and sends the trigger signal to the time-to-digital conversion module; the time-to-digital conversion module stops timing according to the received trigger signal and transmits a time difference value from the start of timing to the stop of timing to the digital signal processing and storage module. The digital signal processing and storage module receives and stores the time difference value, converts the time difference value into three-dimensional point cloud data containing distance information, and transmits the three-dimensional point cloud data to the signal output module. The signal output module is used for outputting the three-dimensional point cloud data.

By adopting the method for eliminating the laser radar crosstalk, the problem that crosstalk is caused when a plurality of laser radars are used in the same scene can be effectively solved; in addition, in the method, the laser emitter and the time-to-digital conversion module start signal synchronization, and the laser flight time is obtained without extra calculation, so that the calculation amount is reduced; and the time difference value measured by the time-to-digital conversion module is the laser flight time, so that the measuring range and the ranging range of the time-to-digital conversion module cannot be reduced due to elimination of laser radar crosstalk.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiments, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.