A TOF Laser Radar Receiver with 100dB-Level Dynamic Range and mm-Level Accuracy

This paper presents an integrated receiver with 100dB-level dynamic range and mm-level accuracy for a time-of-flight (TOF) laser radar system. In this receiver, the differential current signals generated by the photodiode are fed into a trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) and a low-impedance amplifier (LIA) separately to achieve a wide single-shot measurement dynamic range. A timing discrimination scheme based on converting the incoming unipolar pulses into bipolar ones is adopted to reduce the walk errors. Simulation results show that the proposed receiver achieves a dynamic range of more than 1:200000 (106dB) while keeping the walk error less than ±42ps (±6.3mm in distance) without any need for complicated gain control techniques or troublesome calibration methods.