Noise-tolerant LiDAR approaching the standard quantum-limited precision

Haochen Li; Kaimin Zheng; Rui Ge; Labao Zhang; Lijian Zhang; Weiji He; Biao Zhang; Miao Wu; Ben Wang; Minghao Mi; Yanqiu Guan; Jingrou Tan; Hao Wang; Qi Chen; Xuecou Tu; Qingyuan Zhao; Xiaoqing Jia; Jian Chen; Lin Kang; Qian Chen; Peiheng Wu

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-01790-5

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Noise-tolerant LiDAR approaching the standard quantum-limited precision

Original Articles

- Noise-tolerant LiDAR approaching the standard quantum-limited precision
- Noise-tolerant LiDAR approaching the standard quantum-limited precision
- LSA 2025年14卷第5期页码：1387-1397
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Research Institute of Superconductor Electronics & Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Devices and Systems with Extreme Performances of MOE, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
  2.College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
  3.Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei 230088, China
  4.Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Spectral Imaging and Intelligence Sense, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China
- Author bio：
  
  Labao Zhang (Lzhang@nju.edu.cn)
  Lijian Zhang (Lijian.zhang@nju.edu.cn)
  Weiji He (hewj@mail.njust.edu.cn)
  Peiheng Wu (phwu@nju.edu.cn)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-01790-5
  中图分类号：
- 收稿日期：2024-09-18，
  
  修回日期：2025-02-14，
  
  录用日期：2025-02-16，
  
  网络出版日期：2025-03-26，
  
  纸质出版日期：2025-05-31
- Accepted：
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Noise-tolerant LiDAR approaching the standard quantum-limited precision[J]. LSA, 2025,14(5):1387-1397.

Li, H. C. et al. Noise-tolerant LiDAR approaching the standard quantum-limited precision. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 1387-1397 (2025).
Noise-tolerant LiDAR approaching the standard quantum-limited precision[J]. LSA, 2025,14(5):1387-1397. DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-01790-5.

Li, H. C. et al. Noise-tolerant LiDAR approaching the standard quantum-limited precision. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 1387-1397 (2025). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-01790-5.

摘要

Abstract

Quantum-inspired imaging techniques have been proven to be effective for LiDAR with the advances of single photon detectors and computational algorithms. However

due to the disturbance of background noise and the varies of signal in outdoor environment

the performance of LiDAR is still far from its ultimate limit set by the quantum fluctuations of coherent probe light. In this work

we propose and demonstrate a LiDAR from the detection perspective for approaching the standard quantum-limited performance. The photon numbers of echo signals are recorded by a photon-number-resolving detector and applied to overcome heavy background noise through an active photon number filter in the LiDAR. It can approach the standard quantum limit in intensity estimation in a wide photon-flux range

and achieve a Fisher information of only 0.04 dB less than the quantum Fisher information when the mean signal photon number is 10. Experimentally

a noise-free target reconstruction and imaging is demonstrated in the daytime by the proposed LiDAR. It also performs better in reflectivity resolution when taking only 1/1000 of the measurements based on on/off detection. This work provides a fundamental strategy for constructing a LiDAR to quickly extract targets and identify materials in complex environments

which is important for intelligent agents such as autonomous vehicles.

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references

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