The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 05, 2023
Filed:
Jul. 20, 2018
The Boeing Company, Chicago, IL (US);
Daniel J. Sox, Saint Charles, MO (US);
THE BOEING COMPANY, Chicago, IL (US);
Abstract
A 3D LIDAR obstacle avoidance system comprising a camera; a data processor; and a gimbaled laser ranging system. The gimbaled laser ranging system is bore sighted to the camera's optical axis and has its rotation axes centered on the camera focal plane (see the attached drawing). Two-dimensional information of the camera is converted to 3-dimensional information by selectively ranging scene objects of interest (i.e. moving targets). Selected object ranges are queried simply by commanding the gimbal to point to the angle in the scene represented by the object's location in the focal plane. By not sampling the entire scene, significant improvements in throughput and range are achieved. Sensor operation in inclement weather is possible by using an IR camera and a longer wavelength ranging-laser.