Dead time compensation for high-flux ranging

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Accepted manuscript
Date
2019-07-07
Authors
Ma, Yanting
Rapp, Joshua
Dawson, Robin M.A.
Goyal, Vivek
Version
OA Version
Accepted manuscript
Citation
Yanting Ma, joshua Rapp, Robin MA Dawson, Vivek Goyal. 2019. "Dead Time Compensation for High-Flux Ranging." IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Volume 67, Issue 13, pp. 3471 - 3486. https://doi.org/10.1109/tsp.2019.2914891
Abstract
Dead time effects have been considered a major limitation for fast data acquisition in various time-correlated single photon counting applications, since a commonly adopted approach for dead time mitigation is to operate in the low-flux regime where dead time effects can be ignored. Through the application of lidar ranging, this paper explores the empirical distribution of detection times in the presence of dead time and demonstrates that an accurate statistical model can result in reduced ranging error with shorter data acquisition time when operating in the high-flux regime. Specifically, we show that the empirical distribution of detection times converges to the stationary distribution of a Markov chain. Depth estimation can then be performed by passing the empirical distribution through a filter matched to the stationary distribution. Moreover, based on the Markov chain model, we formulate the recovery of arrival distribution from detection distribution as a nonlinear inverse problem and solve it via provably convergent mathematical optimization. By comparing per-detection Fisher information for depth estimation from high- and low-flux detection time distributions, we provide an analytical basis for possible improvement of ranging performance resulting from the presence of dead time. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our formulation and algorithm via simulations of lidar ranging.
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