The present disclosure generally relates to a system and method for directing an optical beam. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a system and method for directing an optical beam in two dimensions. Particular embodiments relate to directing light into an environment having a depth dimension over two dimensions.
Optical beam direction has several uses, including but not limited to LiDAR (light detection and ranging) applications, in which light is sent into an environment for mapping purposes. In three-dimensional mapping, one of the dimensions relates to the range of a point from the origin of the optical beam, whereas the other two dimensions relate to two dimensional space (e.g. in Cartesian (x, y) or polar (r, theta) coordinates) in which the optical beam is steered across. An example LiDAR use of optical beam direction is described in WO 2017/054036.
Reference to any prior art in the specification is not, and should not be taken as, an acknowledgment or any form of suggestion that this prior art forms part of the common general knowledge in any jurisdiction or that this prior art could reasonably be expected to be understood, regarded as relevant and/or combined with other pieces of prior art by a person skilled in the art.
According to one aspect of the disclosure, there is provided an optical system for directing light over two dimensions, the two dimensions comprising a first dimension and a second dimension substantially perpendicular to the first dimension, the light including a selected one of multiple wavelength channels grouped into groups of non-neighbouring wavelength channels, the system including:
a wavelength router for routing the light from a first port to one of second ports based on the selected wavelength channel, the second ports being (a) arranged to direct the routed light across a wavelength dimension associated with the first dimension and (b) each associated with a respective one of the groups of non-neighbouring wavelength channels; and
an array of dispersive elements arranged to each receive the routed light from the respective one of the second ports, each of the array of dispersive elements configured to direct the received light across the second dimension.
According to another aspect of the disclosure, there is provided an optical system for directing light over a first dimension and a second dimension substantially perpendicular to the first dimension, the light including a selected one of multiple wavelength channels, the system including:
a dispersive element arranged to direct the light over a wavelength dimension based on the selected one of the multiple wavelength channels; and
a spatial router for routing the light from one of multiple first ports to one of multiple second ports, the multiple first ports being arranged in accordance with the wavelength dimension, the multiple second ports being arranged along two dimensions associated with the first dimension and the second dimension.
According to another aspect of the disclosure, there is provided a spatial profiling system for profiling an environment having a depth dimension over two dimensions, the system including:
an embodiment of the optical system described in the immediately preceding paragraphs;
a light source optically coupled to the optical system for providing the light; and
a processing unit operatively coupled to the optical system for determining the depth dimension of the environment over the two dimensions.
Further aspects of the present disclosure and further embodiments of the aspects described in the preceding paragraphs will become apparent from the following description, given by way of example and with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Described herein are embodiments of an optical system for directing light over two dimensions. The two dimensions comprise a first dimension (e.g. along the y-axis or vertical direction) and a second dimension (e.g. along the x-axis or horizontal direction) substantially perpendicular to the first dimension. The described system is capable of steering light based on one or more selected wavelength channels and without mechanically moving parts. While the following description refers to selecting a single wavelength channel (e.g. by tuning a wavelength-tunable laser), a person skilled in the art would appreciate that the description is also applicable, with minor modifications (e.g. optically coupling together two or more wavelength-tunable lasers), to select two or more wavelength channels.
Steerability in terms of scanning speed, directional stability and spatial resolution therefore depends on the wavelength-tuning speed, wavelength stability and wavelength-resolution, respectively. The described system can be useful in reducing dependence on mechanical performance, such as reducing occurrences or impact of mechanical failure or mechanical fatigue, due to its static nature.
The described embodiments can be used a beam director, for example, in a spatial profiling arrangement for estimating the spatial profile (e.g. the z-axis or depth) of an environment. Other example applications for beam direction include spectrometry, optical line-of-sight communications, 2D scanning on manufacturing lines, projectors, 2D printers, adaptive illumination and so on. While the following description focusses on spatial profile estimation, a person skilled in the art would appreciate that the description is, with minor modification, also applicable to the other beam direction applications.
The light source 102, the beam director 103, the light receiver 104 may be optically coupled to one another via free-space optics and/or optical waveguides such as optical fibres or optical circuits in the form of 2D or 3D waveguides (see more below). Outgoing light from the light source 102 is provided to the beam director 103 for directing into the environment. Any reflected light collected by the beam director 103 may be directed to the light receiver 104. In one example, light from the light source 102 is also provided to the light receiver 104 for optical processing purposes via a direct light path (not shown) from the light source 102 to the light receiver 104. For example, the light from the light source 102 may first enter a sampler (e.g. a 90/10 fibre-optic coupler), where a majority portion (e.g. 90%) of the light is provided to the beam director 103 and the remaining sample portion (e.g. 10%) of the light is provided to the light receiver 104 via the direct path. In another example, the light from the light source 102 may first enter an input port of an optical switch and exit from one of two output ports, where one output port directs the light to the beam director 103 and the other output port re-directs the light to the light receiver 104 at a time determined by the processing unit 105. Techniques for determining the spatial profile of an environment are described in the applicant's international application no. PCT/AU2016/050899 (published as WO 2017/054036), the contents of which are incorporated herein in its entirety.
The exemplified beam director 103A includes a wavelength router 202 (e.g. an optical interleaver) for routing light 201 of a group of non-neighbouring wavelength channels from a first port 204 to one of second ports 206-1, 206-2 . . . 206-M (collectively 206). The routing is based on the selected wavelength channel. For example, in an interleaving arrangement, the beam exemplified director 103A is configured to route the first M consecutive wavelength channels to the respective M second ports. That is, λ1 is routed to port 206-1, λ2 is routed to port 206-2, . . . and λM is routed to port 206-M. Further, the beam director 103A is configured to route the second M consecutive wavelength channels to the respective M second ports. That is, λM+1 is routed to port 206-1, λM+2 is routed to port 206-2, . . . and λ2M is routed to port 206-M. The exemplified beam director 103A is configured for similar routing for the rest of the wavelength channels. That is, in the interleaving arrangement, each subsequent lot of M consecutive wavelength channels are routed to respective M second ports. In effect, each second port is associated with a respective one of the groups of non-neighbouring wavelength channels λkM+n, where k ∈ 0 to N-1, and n represents a designated second port. For example, the exemplified beam director 103A is configured to route the light 201 at any of the wavelength channels λkM+1 to the port 206-1, wavelength channels λkM+2 to port 206-2 . . . and wavelength channels λ(k+1)M to port 206-M.
The second ports 206 are arranged to direct the routed light across a wavelength dimension. This wavelength dimension may be, related to, or otherwise associated with the first dimension (e.g. along the y-axis of
For illustrative purposes, a screen 210 which is not part of the described system 103A is depicted in
In a non-limiting example for illustrative purposes, the light source 102 may include a telecommunications-grade laser. A telecommunications-grade laser may have a wavelength-tunable range of 100 nm, such as from approximately 1527 nm to approximately 1567 nm (or about 5000 GHz at 1550 nm), tunable in steps of 0.0004 nm to 0.008 nm (or steps of about 50 MHz to 1 GHz at 1550 nm). For example, if the light source 102 is wavelength-tunable over 40 nm, there is a total of about 5000 steps (i.e. N=5000). The wavelength router 202 is an optical interleaver including eight (i.e. M=8) second ports, with each port associated with 625 interleaved wavelengths channels (e.g. λ1, λ9, λ17 . . . λ4992 being routed to one second port, λ2, λ10, λ18 . . . λ4993 being routed to another second port, and so on with λ8, λ16, λ24 . . . λ5000 being routed to the last second port). Due to the grouping of non-neighbouring wavelength channels into respective second ports, such as in groups of interleaved wavelength channels, each second port is configured to receive and direct light spanning almost the entire tunable range of the light source 120 (e.g. with λ1 to λ4992 spanning about 40 nm−(8×0.008 nm)=39.936 nm). In comparison, where neighbouring channels are otherwise grouped (e.g. λ1 to λ625 to the first second port, etc), each group span only a fraction (e.g. one-eighth) of the entire tunable range of the light source 120 (e.g. with λ1 to λ625 spanning about 40 nm/8=5.0 nm). Accordingly, not only does the grouping of the non-neighbouring wavelength channels into respective second ports facilitates beam direction across the first dimension, the grouped wavelength channels being non-neighbouring also allows for a greater spread of the range of wavelength channels and hence, for a given dispersion of the dispersive elements 208, an increase of beam divergence across the second dimension.
In one arrangement, the optical interleaver 202 may include one or more Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs).
A skilled person would also appreciate that, in practice, cross-talk exists due to light being routed to unintended port. That is, in practice, an output port number k may receive a small amount of routed light even if the received wavelength channel is not one of {λk, λk+M, . . . λN-M+1}. In one example, a level of cross-talk is about −30 dB or lower.
In another arrangement, the optical interleaver 202 may include one or more arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs). In one example, the one or more AWGs include at least one cyclic AWG (sometimes known as colourless AWG).
In yet another arrangement, the optical interleaver 202 may include one or more echelle demultiplexers.
In yet another arrangement, the optical interleaver 202 may include any combination of one or more MZIs, one or more AWGs, such as cyclic AWGs and one or more echelle demultiplexers.
Accordingly, the optical interleaver 202 includes M second ports, corresponding to the M groups of wavelength channels, each second port carrying M/N non-neighbouring channels. In one case, one of M and N/M is at least 8, 16 or 32. This case corresponds to a beam director where light is directed across one of the first and second dimensions over at least 8, 16 or 32 pixels (e.g. generating 8, 16 or 32 dots across x or y axis in
Further, an optical interleaver with a smaller FSR carries more wavelength channels per second port. In one use case, the FSR is designed to be no more than 10 GHz. In another use case, the FSR is designed to be no more than 5 GHz. In yet another use case, the FSR is designed to be no more than 1 GHz. For example, in an hereinbefore described arrangement, the FSR is 1 GHz.
In one arrangement, as illustrated in
As illustrated in
The optical waveguides 605 may be written by direct laser writing techniques in a transparent material. One such technique involves the use of femtosecond laser pulses for controllably modifying the refractive index of the transparent material via nonlinear absorption to inscribe the waveguides 605. An example of transparent material is bulk silica, which is transparent at a wide range of wavelengths including those of the light source 102 (e.g. around the 1550 nm wavelength band for a telecommunications-grade light source) and those of the direct-writing laser (e.g. around the 810 nm wavelength band for a Ti:Sapphire femtosecond laser).
The number of wavelength channels aligned with each dimension can be arbitrary, and is determined by the direct laser writing process. For example, the N wavelength channels λ1, λ2, . . . λN may be grouped into M groups of wavelength channels. The M groups of wavelength channels may represent M rows or M columns of second ports 608. The M groups of wavelength channels may be {λ1, λM+1, . . . λN-M+1}, {λ2, λM+2 . . . λN-M+2}, . . . and {λM, λ2M, λN}. In another example, the M groups of wavelength channels may be {λ1, . . . λN/M}, {λN/M+1, . . . λ2M/N}, . . . and {λN-N/M, . . . λN}). Accordingly by selecting a wavelength channel (e.g. via wavelength-tuning of the light source 102), light 601 may be routed to a corresponding one of the second ports 608. The beam director 103B may include one or more collimating elements, such a lens array (not illustrated), to collimate or focus light 610 exiting the second ports 608 (if launched into the environment 110) or entering the second ports 608 (if reflected from the environment 110). The beam direction 103B may include one or more output collimating lenses in a focal plane arrangement, similar to the collimating element 502 in
In one arrangement, the dispersive element 602 includes any one or more of a prism, a diffraction grating and a grism. In another arrangement, as illustrated in
Now that arrangements of the present disclosure are described, it should be apparent to the skilled person in the art that at least one of the described arrangements have the following advantages:
It will be understood that the disclosure disclosed and defined in this specification extends to all alternative combinations of two or more of the individual features mentioned or evident from the text or drawings. All of these different combinations constitute various alternative aspects of the disclosure.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2017903597 | Sep 2017 | AU | national |
This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 16/643,424, filed Feb. 28, 2020, which claims priority to International Application No. PCT/AU2018/050961, filed Sep. 6, 2018, which claims ultimate priority to Australian Patent Application No. 2017903597, filed Sep. 6, 2017, the contents of which are incorporated herein in its entirety.
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20230029264 A1 | Jan 2023 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 16643424 | US | |
Child | 17885085 | US |