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:
Mar. 11, 2025
Filed:
Mar. 25, 2024
Waymo Llc, Mountain View, CA (US);
Pierre-Yves Droz, Mountain View, CA (US);
Samuel William Lenius, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Waymo LLC, Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
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.