US 12,066,541 B2
Imaging system having multiple cores
Mehdi Asghari, La Canada Flintridge, CA (US); Uttam Paudel, La Palma, CA (US); Behnam Behroozpour, South San Francisco, CA (US); and George Nikolaev Guentchev, Irvine, CA (US)
Assigned to SiLC Technologies, Inc., Monrovia, CA (US)
Filed by SiLC Technologies, Inc., Monrovia, CA (US)
Filed on May 31, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/829,328.
Application 17/829,328 is a continuation in part of application No. 17/580,623, filed on Jan. 20, 2022, granted, now 11,982,748.
Prior Publication US 2023/0228878 A1, Jul. 20, 2023
Int. Cl. G01S 17/89 (2020.01); G01S 17/58 (2006.01)
CPC G01S 17/89 (2013.01) [G01S 17/58 (2013.01)] 17 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An imaging system, comprising:
a photonic circuit chip that includes multiple cores that each includes an optical switch and multiple alternate waveguides, the optical switch in each core configured to direct an outgoing light signal to any one of the alternate waveguides, the alternate waveguide to which the outgoing light signal is directed being an active waveguide;
each LIDAR core being configured to output the outgoing LIDAR signal from the active waveguide concurrently with the active waveguide receiving an incoming LIDAR signal;
the incoming LIDAR signal including light that is from the outgoing LIDAR signal, has exited from the imaging system, and returned to the LIDAR system;
each core including an optical splitter configured to receive the outgoing LIDAR signal and the incoming LIDAR signal,
the optical splitter extracting a portion of the outgoing LIDAR signal to serve as a reference signal and a portion of the incoming LIDAR signal to serve as a comparative signal;
each core including a signal combiner configured to combine light from the reference signal with light from the comparative signal so as to generate a composite signal beating at a beat frequency; and
electronics use the beat frequency of the composite signal generated by the core to calculate a radial velocity and/or distance between one or more objects located outside of the imaging system and the imaging system.