Review of lens-assisted beam steering methods

Abstract

Lens-assisted beam steering (LABS) has emerged as a promising solution for compact chip-based optical beam steering for light detection and ranging (LiDAR) applications. In a LABS system, light is steered within an integrated optical chip and emitted at a desired location. This emitted light is focused out into the scene with a lens, analogous to a camera operating in reverse. LABS systems offer many advantages compared to competing technologies such as solid-state reliability, simple control, compactness, and fast random access scanning. Different methods for LABS systems are described and compared. Most LABS systems demonstrated thus far have small arrays, and therefore, only offer a relatively small number of possible beam locations. It is important to understand how these systems will scale to the much larger arrays needed for a practical LiDAR system.