Scannerless three-dimensional imaging using a pulsed laser and an intensified charge-coupled device with linearly modulated gain

Abstract

We have developed a scannerless three-dimensional imaging approach that uses a pulsed laser to illuminate a target and an intensified charge-coupled device as the receiver with linearly modulated gain in gated time. The target range is extracted by processing an intensity image with linearly modulated gain and an intensity image with constant gain. Feasibility of the approach is demonstrated by an indoor experiment. Our prototype system can produce $256\times 256$ pixel range images at a $20\mathrm{Hz}$ frame rate in an outdoor test. The test results indicate that range accuracy is related to the slope coefficient and initial value of the modulated gain.

© 2009 Optical Society of America