Software Design for Adaptive Laser Headlights

The road traffic collisions and injuries, is still a major concern in automotive field. A disproportionate number of fatal accidents happen at nighttime. The major part of the collision is contributed by the human factors. Yet the technology in automobile is continuously assisting drivers while driving. Driving in the dark is not always easy as roads aren’t always illuminated, in such cases a powerful headlight is needed to illuminate most of the road. But such headlights cause glare to the oncoming traffic and again the chances of collision increase, with risking lives of passengers. Therefore, a need of smart headlamps which can illuminate the road far ahead without glaring the oncoming traffic is generated. This research aims to build a Laser based adaptive headlight system which can fulfil the need. The headlight design is proposed using Tinkercad software in which Arduino circuit has been used and software design is presented. The system works well with responding to the steering angle and controls the intensity of light preventing oncoming traffic from getting glared. Keywords: Adaptive headlight system, laser headlights, Arduino, Arduino software design, design of headlight system, cornering lights, effects of laser headlights, Tinkercad

Spot Tracking and TDC Sharing in SPAD Arrays for TOF LiDAR

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is a widespread technique for 3D ranging and has widespread use in most automated systems that must interact with the external environment, for instance in industrial and security applications. In this work, we study a novel architecture for Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) arrays suitable for handheld single point rangefinders, which is aimed at the identification of the objects’ position in the presence of strong ambient background illumination. The system will be developed for an industrial environment, and the array targets a distance range of about 1 m and a precision of few centimeters. Since the laser spot illuminates only a small portion of the array, while all pixels are exposed to background illumination, we propose and validate through Monte Carlo simulations a novel architecture for the identification of the pixels illuminated by the laser spot to perform an adaptive laser spot tracking and a smart sharing of the timing electronics, thus significantly improving the accuracy of the distance measurement. Such a novel architecture represents a robust and effective approach to develop SPAD arrays for industrial applications with extremely high background illumination.

Adaptive optics in laser processing

Adaptive optics are becoming a valuable tool for laser processing, providing enhanced functionality and flexibility for a range of systems. Using a single adaptive element, it is possible to correct for aberrations introduced when focusing inside the workpiece, tailor the focal intensity distribution for the particular fabrication task and/or provide parallelisation to reduce processing times. This is particularly promising for applications using ultrafast lasers for three-dimensional fabrication. We review recent developments in adaptive laser processing, including methods and applications, before discussing prospects for the future.