McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP
Multiplexed multichannel photodetector
A light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system can emit light toward an environment and detect responsively reflected light to determine a distance to one or more points in the environment. The reflected light can be detected by a plurality of plurality of photodiodes that are reverse-biased using a high voltage. Signals from the plurality of reverse-biased photodiodes can be amplified by respective transistors and applied to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The signal from a particular photodiode can be applied to the ADC by biasing a respective transistor corresponding to the particular photodiode while not biasing transistors corresponding to other photodiodes. The gain of each photodiode/transistor pair can be controlled by adjusting the bias voltage applied to each photodiode using a digital-to-analog converter. The gain of each photodiode/transistor pair can be controlled based on the detected temperature of each photodiode.
Waymo LLC
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Pierre-yves Samuel William
Droz Lenius