New LiDAR system can ID a face a kilometer away

A new study has created a superconducting LiDAR system capable of capturing an astonishing amount of detail from distance.

LiDAR has been around since the 1960s and uses laser pulses to measure distance with great accuracy. The new study, led by Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University with scientists drawn from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, MIT, and the University of Glasgow, added something that could obtain highly detailed 3D data from up to one kilometer away.

As reported in Popular Mechanics, the creation uses an ultra-sensitive sensor called the superconducting nanowire single-photon detector (SNSPD). The system, co-developed by NASA and MIT, can trace a single photon to an accuracy of 13 picoseconds (13 trillionths of a second). It can also see through fog and smoke and could have many applications including security, monitoring and remote sensing.

“It allows us to measure variations in depth very, very accurately – on a millimeter scale – which means we can distinguish between closely separated surfaces at very long distances,” Aongus McCarthy, lead author of the study, said in a press statement. The team says their system is at least ten times better at image resolution than similar LiDAR systems.

The system was tested at 45 meters, 325 meters, and one kilometer. One image, of research co-author George Taylor, which was captured at 325 meters, demonstrated the millimeter-scale accuracy and detail of the system. The team also wants to explore the capabilities at even further distances.

“Could we recognise a vehicle type at 10 kilometres, whether it’s a car or a van or a tank?” McCarthy said. “These kind of distances would be of real interest.” The system has other advantages such as the ability to accurately measure distances in broad daylight (scattered sunlight typically degrades the measurement process); can see through clutter and atmospheric obscurants, and is “eye safe” meaning the laser beams are safe to look at from any distance.

However, there are some challenges. The superconducting part of the system means the detector has to be cooled to around minus 272 degrees Celsius (one Kelvin) and requires a special “cryocooler” fridge. But this was another element of the team’s research and a compact cooling system was designed and developed. The team said the system could lead to “step change improvements” in applications such as facial and human activity recognition.

The research is published in the journal Optica, which can be found here.

Article Topics

biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  LiDAR  |  long-distance