An Integrated Laser Radar Receiver Channel with Wide Dynamic Range

A Receiver channel for a pulsed time-of-flight laser rangefinder is presented. It operates in a wide dynamic range without gain control. This is achieved by using leading edge detection and the generated walk error is corrected by measuring the slew rate of the pulse. In this way the compensation can be continued after the pulse is clipped so that the residual walk error can be minimized. Simulations show that a single-shot precision of 125 ps, or 20 mm in distance, is achievable within a dynamic range of at least 1:10,000.