Bipolar Digital Logic Local Oscillator for Bitstream Photon Counting Chirped AM Lidar
This paper is a follow-up to a previous paper introducing the new bitstream Photon Counting Chirped Amplitude Modulation (AM) Lidar (PC-CAML) with a Digital Logic Local Oscillator (DLLO) concept. In that previous work, the DLLO was unipolar. In this paper, a new bipolar DLLO for the bitstream PC-CAML is introduced (patent pending). The bipolar DLLO retains the key advantages of the unipolar DLLO for the bitstream PC-CAML since it also replaces bulky, power-hungry, and expensive wideband RF analog electronics with digital components that can be implemented in inexpensive silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) read-out integrated circuits (ROICs) to make the bitstream PC-CAML with a DLLO more suitable for compact lidar-on-a-chip systems and lidar array receivers than previous PC-CAML systems. In addition, the bipolar DLLO improves the electrical power signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the bitstream PC-CAML by about 2.5 dB compared to that of the unipolar DLLO as shown by the theoretical and Monte Carlo simulation results presented in this paper. Theoretically, there should be a 3 dB improvement for the bipolar DLLO from the elimination of the signal power loss to the DC component of the intermediate frequency (IF) spectrum that occurs with the unipolar DLLO. However, this improvement is partially offset by a higher quantization noise for the bipolar DLLO compared to that of the unipolar DLLO as explained in this paper.This paper introduces the bipolar DLLO for bitstream PC-CAML concept and presents the initial signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) theory with comparisons to Monte Carlo simulation results.