Abstract
Imaging systems with temporal resolution play a vital role in a diverse range of scientific, industrial, and consumer applications, e.g., fluorescent lifetime imaging in microscopy and time-of-flight (ToF) depth sensing in autonomous vehicles. In recent years, single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) arrays with picosecond timing capabilities have emerged as a key technology driving these systems forward. Here we report a high-speed 3D imaging system enabled by a state-of-the-art SPAD sensor used in a hybrid imaging mode that can perform multi-event histogramming. The hybrid imaging modality alternates between photon counting and timing frames at rates exceeding 1000 frames per second, enabling guided upscaling of depth data from a native resolution of $64 \times 32$ to $256 \times 128$. The combination of hardware and processing allows us to demonstrate high-speed ToF 3D imaging in outdoor conditions and with low latency. The results indicate potential in a range of applications where real-time, high throughput data are necessary. One such example is improving the accuracy and speed of situational awareness in autonomous systems and robotics.
© 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement
1. INTRODUCTION
3D depth sensing is used in a growing range of applications, including autonomous vehicles [1], industrial machine vision [2], gesture recognition in computer interfaces [3], and augmented and virtual reality [4]. Among a number of approaches to capture depth, time-of-flight (ToF) [5], which illuminates the scene with a modulated or pulsed light source and measures the return time of the backscattered light, is emerging as an appealing choice in many applications. Advantages include greater than centimeter depth resolution over distances ranging from a few meters to several kilometers. In contrast to alternative techniques such as stereoscopy [6] and structure-from-motion, there is low computational overhead, and no reliance on scenes being textured. Furthermore, ToF uses simple point, blade or flood-type illumination, as opposed to the projection patterns that structured light-type approaches rely on [7].
While frame rates of 10–60 frames per second (FPS) are typical for ToF, an order of magnitude faster acquisition rates, coupled with minimal latency, would be beneficial in several applications. In autonomous cars, for example, fast 3D mapping of the environment would help ensure the timely detection of obstacles. For city driving, video rate acquisition equates to several meters of travel for every few frames of 3D data, which may mean the difference between a collision being avoided or not. Similarly, augmented reality requires fast capture of the user’s environment, so that it can be interpreted by computer vision, and digitally enhanced, in real time for a seamless experience. In a broader context, ToF at ${\gt}\!{1}\;{\rm kFPS}$ would access the realm of scientific imaging, and enable the recording of transient, high-speed phenomena [8], such as in fluid dynamics, not possible with current ToF technology.
Achieving high frame rates requires high photon efficiency throughout the pipeline of converting incident photons into timing information as presented at the outputs of the sensor. Furthermore, the parallelized acquisition of 2D array format sensors, coupled with flood-type illumination [9], offers higher potential frame rates than systems based on a single-point sensor and beam steering, where the scanning rate can be a limiting factor. From the perspective of photon-efficiency, single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) have inherent advantages, thanks to an ability to time individual photons with picosecond timing resolution, and shot-noise limited operation. However in SPAD image sensors providing time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC), both the fill factor and the overall photon throughput have been relatively low, compared to the maximal rate of ${\gt}\!{100}\;{\rm M}$ events/s that a single SPAD can generate [10]. This is due to the use of photon timers, or time-to-digital converters (TDCs), which register only the first detected photon in every frame [11]. While computational imaging approaches [12–14] have been proposed to estimate depth from sparse photon events, current approaches tend to be computationally intensive, and the “filling in” of gaps in data may not be acceptable in safety critical applications. A further disadvantage of “first-photon” TDCs is a susceptibility to distortion in the resulting timing histograms under high ambient levels, corrupting depth estimates. A number of strategies have been proposed to reduce this distortion [15–17], the offsetting of the photon measurement window with respect to the laser cycle having been shown as the most effective approach [18].
Previously reported high-speed ToF results include underwater depth imaging [19] with a $192 \times 128$ SPAD at binary (first-photon) frame rates approaching 1 kFPS (the resulting depth frames showing relatively sparse depth information due to low photon returns). Another study [20] presents indoor depth results from a $32 \times 32$ InGaAs SPAD running at a binary frame rate of 50 kFPS. Frames are accumulated in groups of ${\ge} 25$, and Kalman filtering is applied to obtain depth maps, the example timing histograms provided showing evidence of pileup effects. The same SPAD has been used to demonstrate a computationally efficient approach for reconstructing 3D scenes from single-photon data in real time at video rates [21]. A frame rate of 200 FPS has been shown for a $64 \times 32$ SPAD with an indirect ToF architecture [22]. It is also important to mention compressive sensing ToF systems [23] that have the potential of generating depth maps with high frame rates, by reducing the number of measurements. However, at present, the reconstruction of frames can be computationally demanding.
In this work, we use a state-of-the-art SPAD array sensor [24] for high-speed 3D sensing. The sensor has a 3D-stacked structure with separate detector and photon processing tiers, which enables high fill factor of 50% and an increased processing capability within the array. The array has a full resolution of $256 \times 256$ pixels, and this is made up of $64 \times 64$ macropixels, each containing a small array of $4 \times 4$ SPADs. The sensor can operate in multiple modes, two of which are relevant to this work: first, intensity or photon counting mode at a resolution of $256 \times 256$; second, multi-event TCSPC histogram mode at a resolution of $64 \times 64$. To maximize the potential frame rate of the sensor, we halve the number of rows read out, thus doubling the frame rate.
In the intensity mode, each pixel provides a 14-bit photon count; thus, in principle, the photon counting capacity of the sensor is $256 \times 128 \times {(2^{14}} - 1) \approx 0.5\,\,{\rm giga}$ photons in a single frame. In the histogram mode, events in each $4 \times 4$ macropixel are combined to provide a single histogram, hence the reduced resolution in this case. Each histogram contains 16 bins, and each bin has a minimum temporal resolution of 500 ps and a photon counting capacity of 14 bits. The temporal bin width of the sensor can be increased arbitrarily. When operating in histogram mode, the photon counting capacity of the entire sensor is $64 \times 32 \times 16 \times {(2^{14}} - 1) \approx 0.5\,\,{\rm giga}$ photons in a single frame. The consequence of this is that the sensor is able to operate in high photon flux environments without getting saturated.
For this work, we have developed the firmware of the sensor with regards to [24] such that it can operate in a hybrid imaging mode at high speeds. In the hybrid imaging mode, high-resolution intensity images and low-resolution ToF histograms can be captured in an interleaved fashion. The advantage of the hybrid imaging mode is that we have a high-resolution intensity image with which to guide the upsampling of the lower resolution depth information, resulting in a fourfold improvement in the spatial resolution of the depth data.
The sensor operates such that alternating frames at ${\approx} 500\,\,{\rm FPS}$ in intensity and histogram mode are captured, providing an overall frame rate of ${\approx} 1\,\,{\rm kFPS}$. The upper estimate of the maximum photon throughput of the sensor is then ${\approx} 500\,\,{\rm giga}$ photons per second. Table 1 compares the maximum photon counting in 1 ms of the sensor to other state-of-the-art devices. We see that the sensor used in this work has a maximum photon counting capacity of ${\approx} 500\,\,{\rm mega}$ photons in 1 ms. This is a 3 orders of magnitude improvement in total photon count, thus enabling operation in high photon flux environments.
The work presented here demonstrates high-speed 3D imaging in ambient light conditions. This is enabled by the unique combination of the factors mentioned above: first, the state-of-the-art SPAD array that can operate in a high photon flux environment; second, firmware that enables alternating modes of imaging at high rates; and third, the guided upsampling algorithm that upscales the native resolution of the depth data.
Figure 1 illustrates the advantages of multi-event histogramming over conventional first-photon timing: photon-rich histograms are generated in-pixel, which dramatically increases the acquisition rate of photons. Furthermore, pileup distortion is minimized, as it requires multiple photon detections within the time interval of a bin, rather than within the entire histogram time period, and when it does occur, its effect is independent of bin position. We also note that as the SPADs are continually active, rather being turned on at the start of the timing period, detector pileup due to the SPAD dead-time and macropixel combination tree [25] does not distort toward early time bins either.
2. EXPERIMENT
The experimental setup is illustrated in Fig. 2 and has the SPAD camera triggering a pulsed, fiber-coupled laser source (Picoquant LDH-Series 670 nm laser diode, 60 MHz repetition rate), whose light is spread over the fast-changing scene to be captured using a 3.3 mm, NA = 0.47 aspheric lens (Thorlabs N414TM-A). Imaging is through a 3.5 mm/f1.4 objective (Thorlabs MVL4WA, giving a 25 deg diagonal field-of-view), resulting in matching imaging and illumination cones. Adjustable ambient illumination is provided by a high-intensity LED array. The 40 mW average optical power from the laser is sufficient for the setup to achieve sub-centimeter depth precision for targets at a close distance range (2 m) while maintaining high frame rates in the kFPS range. Global shutter is used, so that the camera frame rate is given by $1/({T_{{\rm exp}}} + {T_{{\rm read}}})$, where ${T_{{\rm exp}}}$ is the exposure time and ${T_{{\rm read}}} = 655\,\,\unicode{x00B5}{\rm s}$ is the frame readout time. The total power consumption of the sensor is ${\lt}{100}\;{\rm mW}$.
Figure 2 also shows a sample depth frame from the SPAD when capturing a high-speed (1000 RPM) fan. The figure also gives the histogram corresponding to a macropixel, showing time-resolved photon returns from the fan blade. The bin width in this case is around 700 ps. The histogram can be approximated as a sampled Gaussian function with a vertical offset, each bin being subject to Poisson noise. Depth may be obtained by estimating the time position of the peak using iterative curve fitting [26], but a simple approximate maximum likelihood method leads to similar performance. The latter reduces to a localized center-of-mass method using signal counts, obtained after subtraction of background counts from the histograms [27]. A scenario where center-of-mass gives sub-optimal results is when there are multiple overlapping peaks in the histogram.
To highlight the considerable photon throughput of the system, Fig. 3(a) shows an example depth frame, obtained in high ambient conditions, of a person juggling outdoors. The sequence was captured under the midday sun on a clear late-April day in Edinburgh, Scotland, leading to considerable solar radiation at the laser wavelength (670 nm). Despite the high ambient level, the content of the frame, i.e. the torso, arms, ball, is clearly recognizable. The figure also plots the histogram for a macropixel registering photons from the surface of the ball, indicating an ambient level of around 0.9 background photons per laser cycle. At such level of background photons, conventional first-photon TDCs suffer from considerable photon pileup effects [15], making it difficult to detect the laser return and hence capture an accurate depth map, as illustrated using synthesized data in Fig. 3(b). We note that the multi-event TDC used here gives a histogram free from obvious distortions, as evidenced by the flat baseline, and a visible signal peak, despite the short 300 µs exposure time.
Depth frames captured using the camera are limited, in their native form, to the macropixel resolution of $64 \times 32$. However, they may be upscaled, with relatively low computational needs, to the detector resolution of $256 \times 128$, by acquiring photon counting data, at this resolution, in alternate frames. The scheme, illustrated in Fig. 4, has the following steps. The number of depth frames is upconverted to the overall frame rate of the camera to produce depth frames that are aligned with the intensity images. The newly generated depth frames are then upscaled according to the corresponding intensity data, and 3D images are generated from the resulting depth frames, with intensity overlaid. The overall processing time for a MATLAB implementation running on a PC with Intel Core i7-4790 CPU at 3.60 GHz and 32 GB RAM is currently in the 50 ms region. However, as significant portions of the algorithm operate on individual or groups of pixels, it is anticipated that with parallelization, and potential hardware acceleration, the computational time can be reduced to a level commensurate with the frame time of 1 ms or shorter. A comparison with existing upscaling schemes using examples from the Middlebury dataset [28] shows generally higher accuracy than the state-of-the-art GTV [29] algorithm, together with an order-of-magnitude speed improvement, and better edge-preserving properties (see Supplement 1).
3. DATA ANALYSIS
A. Data Acquisition and Depth Calculation
An Opal Kelly XEM7310 FPGA integration module is used to interface to the SPAD sensor. With the data output clock set to 100 MHz, frames are acquired at a rate of up to 1.5 kFPS, and streamed continuously over a USB3.0 link to the PC. A software interface implemented in MATLAB controls the acquisition of data, and decodes the frames. Assuming a Gaussian system impulse response, depth frames are produced using an approximate maximum likelihood estimator that can be efficiently computed using a localized center-of-mass of TCSPC histograms. In the default case, the following equation is used to estimate depth $d$:
The resulting precision in the depth values is plotted in Fig. 5 for increasing ambient levels. Curves are shown for target reflectivities of ${\lt}10\%$ and ${\approx} 80\%$, with the target at 2 m distance. The results, obtained for an exposure time of 500 µs (860 FPS), indicate sub-centimeter precision, even at the highest LED setting (which was the setting used in the indoor imaging examples in this paper). The accuracy was previously characterized [24] as approximately ${\pm}2\;{\rm cm} $.
The limited number of bins constrains the total depth range, for example, the 700 ps bin size used here leads to a ${\approx} 1.7\;{\rm m} $ range. Outside of this range, aliasing or wraparound occurs. As the present paper focuses on short-range imaging, range disambiguation is not considered in detail here. However, potential solutions include a two-step ranging approach [31] leading to a scene adaptive sensing approach [32,33]. In the first step, the bin size is set to a suitably large size such that the entire distance range of interest is covered. Once a measure of the absolute depth has been obtained this way, we switch to a smaller bin size to track the depth with sub-bin precision at high frame rates. We note that the laser energy must spread over multiple bins for sub-bin precision to be attained. In practice, it is expected that only a small fraction of frames would need to be captured at the wide bin setting for effective range disambiguation, the impact on the effective frame rate therefore being limited. An alternative is to use solely the wide bin setting, and scale the laser pulse width (and power) accordingly. As an example, a 16 ns bin width would give a depth range of ${\approx} 38\;{\rm m} $.
B. Depth Upscaling
The depth frames obtained as detailed above are at the macropixel resolution of camera, which at $64 \times 32$ is relatively low. To overcome this limitation, 14-bit photon counting frames are captured in alternate frames, and used to guide the upscaling of depth data to a $256 \times 128$ resolution matching that of the intensity data. This upscaling process raises several challenges due to (i) the requirement to preserve edges to avoid artificially “joining up” distinct surfaces in the scene, (ii) the possible misalignment between the depth and intensity images for rapidly varying dynamic scenes [34], and (iii) the need for fast processing approaching real-time rates. As detailed in Supplement 1, while there are a number of existing methods that tackle these challenges separately [34–36], the aim here is to deal with all three at the same time. The proposed strategy is based on two main steps: (1) interpolate the low-resolution depth maps at times corresponding to the intensity frames; (2) generate the high-resolution maps, with both steps considering the measured high-resolution intensity maps, as indicated in Fig. 6. Inspired by the alternating direction method of multipliers [37,38] or regularization by denoising [39] approaches that alternate between an estimation and filtering/denoising steps, each step of our method has two sub-steps, an estimation sub-step followed by a filtering sub-step to improve performance. To ensure fast processing, the estimation is performed using analytical expressions or simple operations. Edges are preserved in the filtering step by adopting ${\ell _1}$-norm-based algorithms such as the weighted median filter [40]. Further details on the method, together with comparisons with existing upscaling approaches in simulations, can be found in Supplement 1.
4. RESULTS
We present illustrative results obtained with the above approach, demonstrating the high-speed capture of 3D scenes. Figure 7 shows the application of the algorithm to the outdoor juggling data in Fig. 3. The results are presented in the form of intensity, depth, upscaled depth, and 3D image frames. In each case, a set of three frames is given, separated by a time interval corresponding to 30 raw (15 SPC and 15 TCSPC) camera frames. The final 3D image frames are seen to be enhanced in definition compared to Fig. 3(a). We note an artefact protruding from the left hand side of the person; this is due to a feature in the background matching the shade of the person’s T-shirt. Figure 8 gives the results of a similar juggling sequence, but captured indoors. Comparing the upscaled depth frames [Fig. 8(c)] with the original [Fig. 8(b)], improved smoothness can be seen along edges in depth. This is achieved while preserving the edges: no obvious interpolation effects are visible between the person’s hands and chest, nor between the head/shoulders and background. Furthermore, there is more detail overall on the upscaled frames, as demonstrated by the individual fingers on the hands being better defined. Figure 9 shows another set of example frames, capturing an apple being struck with a hammer. From the intensity frames as well as the depth frames, we can readily identify individual pieces of fruit flying off with high speed following impact. The upscaled depth frames [Fig. 9(c)] show an improvement in the definition of the edges of these pieces, at the expense of very small fragments (of a size similar to or smaller than a macropixel) being smoothed out. There is also evidence of noisy depth values (resulting from photon shot noise), as seen, for example, on the lower right corner of the first frame in Fig. 9(b), being removed by the upscaling process.
Videos of the above examples can be found in Visualization 1, Visualization 2, Visualization 3, Visualization 4, Visualization 5, and Visualization 6. In addition, we show depth sequences capturing the high-speed fan at exposure levels down to 50 µs (1418 FPS), demonstrating the viability of 3D imaging at ${\gt}\!{10}\;{\rm kFPS}$ (provided a faster sensor readout), even with the modest laser optical power currently in use.
5. DISCUSSION AND OUTLOOK
By exploiting the multi-photon timing, in-pixel histogramming functionality of a SPAD ToF image sensor, depth can be captured at frame rates above 1 kFPS. The acquisition of depth frames may also be combined, in a time-interleaved fashion, with that of higher resolution intensity frames. While this halves the frame rate of native depth frames, it enables additional, upscaled depth frames to be generated, guided by, and aligned with the intensity frames. We have demonstrated the practicability of the scheme in the capture of high-speed 3D sequences, even under high ambient illumination, with modest laser power requirements. This system is therefore highly relevant for applications, such as collision avoidance in robotics, where fast 3D perception that matches or exceeds human reaction times is required. To that end, we can see a number of ways that the system could be further improved:
- • While native depth frames can be obtained with minimal processing, upscaled depth frames currently take several tens of milliseconds to produce. The target is to reduce this latency down to (sub-)millisecond levels.
- • The current algorithm provides upscaled point depth estimates without uncertainty measures. The reformulation of the algorithm using statistical modeling tools will allow the generation of confidence maps necessary for autonomous applications.
- • The limiting factor in the frame rate for the short ranges and modest field-of-view is the readout time of the sensor. Increasing the number of output lines in the sensor from the current eight data outputs would enable even higher frame rates and/or support larger array sizes.
- • We do not currently make full use of the information within the histograms. In particular, only a single peak is extracted from each histogram. We can extract either the highest peak or the peak closer to the sensor. It is anticipated that by extracting multiple peaks, as well as the widths of these peaks [41], the upscaling of depth could be further improved.
- • A picosecond laser source is currently used, leading to an instrument response function that can be approximated by a Gaussian with $\sigma \approx 400\;{\rm ps} $. This means that the histogram bin width of $\delta = 700\;{\rm ps} $ is within the range of $\sigma \lt \delta \lt 2\sigma$ identified in literature for optimal precision [42]. Nevertheless, it may be advantageous to switch to a nanosecond laser (typical of lidar), and to adjust the bin width accordingly, as these lasers are available in compact driver boards.
- • Although the present work only considers imaging over a short range, the system is expected to be capable of high frame rates at longer distances, provided the laser power is scaled accordingly, noting the inverse-square law governing photon returns [9].
The high-speed sensing that we present is enabled by the combination of the SPAD array sensor with high photon flux capabilities, firmware that provides high-speed hybrid imaging, and a guided upsampling approach to super-resolution. Re-configurable sensor architectures, paired with appropriate processing, could form the basis of future, “agile” 3D ToF systems that recognize the environmental conditions, and adapt the data acquisition and illumination source accordingly to ensure optimal 3D perception.
Funding
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/L016753/1, EP/M01326X/1, EP/S001638/1); Royal Academy of Engineering (RF/201718/17128).
Acknowledgment
The authors are grateful to STMicroelectronics and the ENIAC-POLIS project for chip fabrication. Portions of this work without the guided upsampling were presented at the International Image Sensor Workshop in 2019 [43]. The data presented in the paper can be found at [44].
Disclosures
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
See Supplement 1 for supporting content.
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