Enhancing LiDAR performance using threshold photon-number-resolving detection

Single -photon light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is widely used to reconstruct 3D scenes. Nevertheless, depth and reflectivity maps obtained by single -photon detection usually suffer from noise problems. Threshold LiDAR techniques using photon -number -resolving detectors were proposed to suppress noise by filtering low photon numbers, but these techniques renounce multiple levels of information and could not be compatible when it comes to high -noise low -signal regime. In this manuscript, we propose a detection scheme which combines the noise suppression of threshold detection with the signal amplification of photon -number -resolving detectors to further enhance LiDAR performance. The enhancement attained is compared to single -photon and threshold detection schemes under a wide range of signal and noise conditions, in terms of signal -to -noise -ratio (SNR), detection rate and false alarm rate, which are key metrics for LiDAR. Extensive simulations and real -world experiments show that the proposed scheme can reconstruct better depth and reflectivity maps. These results enable the development of high -efficient and low -noise LiDAR systems. (c) 2024 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement