2-D Optical-CDMA Modulation in Automotive Time-of-Flight LIDAR Systems

In this paper, the application of 2-D optical code-division multiple-access (OCDMA) modulation using wavelength-hopping time-spreading codes in long-range automotive time-of-flight (ToF) light detection and ranging (LIDAR) systems is proposed and demonstrated. The regulations and constraints that govern the design of the proposed system are presented. Using 2-D carrier-hopping prime codes, the modulation technique and associated hardware are implemented and validated with OptiSystem™ simulation. Interference-robustness studies show that the proposed 2-D OCDMA ToF LIDAR system is more flexible in the choice of system/code parameters and can support many more sensors and simultaneous ToF measurements than the 1-D counterpart.