Optical phased array (OPA) is a suitable device for producing emission beams in LiDAR. In order to achieve high-speed scanning control of the output beam by OPA chips, we designed and produced a 128-channel silicon-based OPA chip based on electro-optic modulation. Considering the characteristics of multi-phase control in electro-optic OPA chips, a parallel dual-port random access memory (RAM) inside a field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology is used to achieve optical phase control for each channel. The entire system is implemented by existing FPGA chips and digital-to-analog converters (DACs). To implementing the circuit system, we also built a high-speed testing environment for OPA scanning. The system was used to verify the main performance of our designed OPA chip and achieve high-speed scanning control. The test results show that our designed OPA chip and control circuit can achieve fast scanning of the emission beam. The optical phase configuration time is less than 5 μ s. This system can meet the requirements of fast scanning control for all solid-state LiDAR optical emission modules. This work lays the foundation for our subsequent development of OPA-based all solid-state LiDAR prototype.

The pulse laser emission circuit plays a crucial role as the emission unit of time-of-flight (TOF) LiDAR. This paper proposes a nanosecond-level pulse laser diode array drive circuit for LiDAR, primarily aimed at addressing the issue of high-speed scanning drive for the laser diode array at the emission end of solid-state LiDAR. Based on the single pulse laser diode drive circuit, this paper innovatively designs a circuit that includes modules such as a boost circuit, linear power supply, high-speed gate driver, GaN field-effect transistor, and pulse narrowing circuit, realizing an 8-channel laser diode array drive circuit. This circuit can achieve a pulse laser array drive with a single channel operating frequency of greater than 100 kHz, an output pulse width of less than 5 ns, a peak power greater than 75 W, and a channel switching time that does not exceed 1 μs. A field programmable gate array (FPGA) is used to control the operation of this circuit and perform a series of performance tests. Experimental results show that this circuit has a high repetition rate, large output power, a narrow pulse width, and fast switching speeds, making it highly suitable for use in the optical emission module of solid-state LiDAR.

Frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) LiDAR offers strong interference immunity, eye safety, and simultaneous distance–velocity measurement. However, long-range and low-reflectivity detection is often limited by polarization fading, reduced return power, bandwidth constraints, and system noise. This work presents a silicon-photonic polarization-diverse coherent receiver that enables both polarization states of the return signal to participate in coherent detection, reducing polarization-induced fading. A pipeline real-time constant false-alarm rate (CFAR) is further incorporated to robustly identify beat-frequency peaks under long-range and high-frequency-attenuated conditions. Experiments show that for a 200 m target with 10% reflectivity, the detection probability increases from 43.5% to 97% after applying CFAR and polarization-diverse detection. The system achieves real-time 4D imaging at 100,000 points per second, demonstrating improved detection reliability for integrated FMCW LiDAR.

Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) has received extensive attention, owing to its high robustness and accuracy, and its extensive applications in the automotive and robotics domains. However, mainstream demonstrations predominantly rely on high-performance yet expensive instrumentation, which poses a significant barrier to the widespread manufacturing of FMCW LiDAR systems. In this study, we introduce a novel Laser Frequency Modulation and Beat Signal Processing module (LFM-BSP) realized on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The LFM-BSP is distinguished by its full functionality, encompassing all essential electronic operations required by FMCW LiDARs. The LFM-BSP adopts pre-distortion approach to generate linear modulation waveform of nonlinear laser source. Utilizing the waveform, a fully functional, standalone FMCW LiDAR prototype was developed based on the LFM-BSP. The prototype incorporates a 2-axis galvanometer to facilitate beam steering. Simultaneous ranging and velocimetry experiments were performed, resulting in ranging and velocimetry precision of 0.011 m and 0.059 m/s, respectively. Furthermore, the prototype’s capability in 4D point cloud imaging was evaluated. The results suggest that the LFM-BSP is highly suitable for automotive LiDAR applications, thereby offering a practical framework for the development of next-generation monolithic FMCW LiDAR systems.

Silicon-based optical phased array (OPA) can achieve full solid-state beam steering, which is a promising solution for next-generation Lidar. As OPA research progresses, OPA Lidar is approaching readiness for industrial application. However, most of the OPAs are mainly configured with digital-to-analog converters (DAC), which suffers from high power consumption, low efficiency, high cost, and complex circuitry, especially for thermal-optical OPA. Here we design a control system for thermal-optical OPA based on bipolar pulse width modulation (BPWM). Compared with DAC-based solution, our system maintains comparable performance in terms of spot quality, detection performance, etc. Additionally, the heat load on the OPA chip is effectively reduced, the average power consumption of the system is reduced by 74.4%, the average operating efficiency of the driver module improved to a factor of 3.96 of the original one, and the device cost has also been significantly reduced. Finally, an OPA Lidar prototype is constructed based on our PWM control system, which is able to obtain clear 4D point cloud. To our best knowledge, this is the first demonstration of point cloud imaging by OPA Lidar system with PWM control. This work facilitates the commercialization of OPA Lidar.