Optics and Laser Technology 125 (2020) 106013

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Optics and Laser Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optlastec

Optical design of a new folding scanning system in MEMS-based lidar T

a b,⁎ a a
Xiaobao Lee , Chunhui Wang , Zhaoxu Luo , Shengqing Li
a
College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou 412007, China
b
National Key Laboratory of Technology on Tunable Laser, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, China

H I GH L IG H T S

• Principle of a new optical angle expansion is given in theory.

• F-theta lens and wide-angle lenses added are beneficial to scanning angle expansion.
• Telecentric lens in space designed facilitates the adjustment of light path.
• New optical design method solves the problem of limited scanning angle.
• Laser spot size is guaranteed to be appropriate value at distance of about 100 m.

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In order to solve the two disadvantages, serious divergence and limited scanning angle, of the traditional optical
Lidar angle expansion in MEMS-based scanning system, a new method is proposed, i.e. an f-theta lens group and a
Optical systems wide-angle lens group are added into the traditional one. Principle of the optical angle expansion is discussed,
Lens system design while the relationship between emergent angle and incident angles has been given. Employing the optical design
Geometric optical design
software ZEMAX, a folding scanning optical system based on MEMS mirror is designed thereafter. The folding
scanning optical system we designed can not only scan in a large angle field, which is greater than 60°, but also
obtain small spot size at distance of about 160 m, where the spot size is less than 10 cm. This folding scanning
optical system has a significant application value in 3D imaging lidar system.

1. Introduction transmitting system. In traditional optical angle expansion, the optical

system is constructed with two lenses–a positive lens located before
The new generation of LIDAR system tends to be miniaturized, light MEMS mirror and a negative lens behind it [15,16,11], as shown in Ref.
and low-cost [1–4]. MEMS micro-mirror with characteristics of small [15].
volume, fast-scanning, low-cost [5–10] and can scan in bi-axes becomes However, this traditional lens group has at least two shortages: (1)
an important component in this kind of LIDAR system. Generally, in The emergent laser beam is divergent. Although the influences of laser
MEMS-based LIDAR, the dual-axis fast scanning MEMS is used as beam divergence is not obvious for the detecting target at near distance
scanner, while the pulsed laser is used as the light source. When a pulse (several meters), for target with distance at tens of meters, or even
laser with a certain repetition frequency (such as 100 kHz) is projected farther, the spot size of emergent beam projected onto the target surface
into the target space through the MEMS scanning mirror, the echo re- will become larger; the unit area energy decreases rapidly, resulting in a
flected from the target enters a receiving optical system, and then been small proportion of return laser energy to the total energy of laser
focused onto the photosensitive surface of the detector. Echo detection emission. The signal-to-noise (SNR) is too low to be received by de-
of pulsed laser at each scanning point in the target space is realized by tector. (2) The total scanning angle after expansion is limited (generally
using a single detector and a MEMS scanning mirror. Because the bi- less than 60°). If the field of view (FOV) angle is greater than 60°, the
axis mechanical deflection angle of the single MEMS mirror scanning in divergence of laser beam will be more serious.
high scan frequency of more than 100 Hz is small (about ± 5°) [11–14], Aim at these shortages, this paper is planning to discuss and design a
in order to realize the larger scanning field, the traditional viable foldable scanning optical system based on MEMS micro-mirror for
method is to add an angle expansion optical system into the LIDAR system, in which the optical angle of the MEMS will be extended

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Wang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optlastec.2019.106013
Received 12 May 2018; Received in revised form 15 July 2019; Accepted 14 December 2019
0030-3992/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Lee, et al. Optics and Laser Technology 125 (2020) 106013

Fig. 1. Principle schematic diagram of MEMS-based fording scanning optical system.

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the design principle for wide-angle lens group.

Table 1 Table 2
Specifications of a referred MEMS from Mirrorcle Technologies Design data of the f-theta lens (unit: mm).
Inc.
Surf. Radius of curvature Thick Glass Diameter
Parameter Value
STO Infinity 50
Area size 3.6 mm 2 −18.31 10.0 F_SILICA 30
Surface Roughness <10 nm rms 3 −423.68 4.25
Mirror Radius of Curvature >5 m 4 −121.12 7.07 SF18 40
Maximum tilt angle x-angle 5.746° 5 −35.33 6.45
Maximum tilt angle x-angle 5.675° 6 4603.44 9.29 SF18 40
LPF cutoff frequency 200 Hz 7 −76.27 142.83

from 4° to 60°, the serious divergent problem of the emergent beam is through a collimator, and then travelling through a pre-positive fo-
also solved, allowing the spot size of laser beam on the target at about cusing lens group to focus onto the surface of MEMS micro-mirror with
100 m to be less than 10 cm. aperture of 1–2 mm. The focal length of the pre-positive lens group
needs to be larger than its interval from MEMS mirror. The mechanical
deflection angle of MEMS mirror is small. By an f-theta lens with
2. Principle of MEMS folding scanning optical system telecentric system in image space the laser beam projected onto the
image plane, resulting in a certain size of laser spot, which corresponds
2.1. Principle of the whole MEMS folding scanning optical system to a certain FOV for the positive lens behind closely. The maximum
image height y on the f-theta mirror plane can be expressed as:
As shown in Fig. 1, the laser beam emitted from a laser passes

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X. Lee, et al. Optics and Laser Technology 125 (2020) 106013

Fig. 3. Effect graph of the f-theta lens designed by ZEMAX.

Fig. 4. Spot Diagram of the designed f-theta lens. The scale is 400 μm , where the three lines from the upper left to lower right are the cases corresponding to the
incident angle being (0°, 0°), (0°, 4°); (0°, 5.6°), (0°, 8.0°), (0°, −4.0°) and (0°, −5.6°), (0°, −8.0°), respectively. The circle refers to airy disk.

y = f1 ·θ1 (1) easy to get relationship:

where the f1 is the focal length of f -theta lens, θ1 (unit in radian) is the f
optical deflection angle of MEMS mirror, as two times as its maximum θ2 = arctan ⎜⎛ 1 ·θ1⎞⎟
⎝ f2 ⎠ (3)
mechanical deflection angle of MEMS mirror. At last the laser beam
passes through a short focal length positive lens group with telecentric Obviously, the focal length f2 needs to be kept less than f1 in order to
system in object space, of which the FOV θ2 meets the relationship: expander the MEMS micro-mirror scanning angle, which is the key
y = f2 ·tanθ2 condition of the beam expander; and it is also required that laser beam
(2)
left from the positive lens group with short focal length becomes a
where f2 is the effective focal length of expansion lens group in image parallel or approximate parallel emergent beam, so as to ensure the
space; θ2 is the FOV after angle expansion. From Eqs. (1) and (2), it is small spot size of laser on the surface of target at further distance.

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X. Lee, et al. Optics and Laser Technology 125 (2020) 106013

Fig. 5. Field Curvature and Distortion of the designed f-theta lens.

Fig. 6. Effect graph of the wide-angle lens group designed by ZEMAX.

2.2. Principle of wide-angle lens group angles in object space and emergent angle in image space, respectively.
Obviously, the effective focal length of the combined optical system is
The design principle of wide-angle lens is revealed in Fig. 2; the less than fII′ , which results in the F number fc′ / h2 < 1.
wide-angle lens group can be seen as constructed by an inverted tele-
scope and a general photographic lens, which are denoted as I and II,
3. Implementation of the scanning optical system
respectively.
The effective focus length of the combined optical system (the wide-
3.1. Design specifications
angle lens group) can be expressed as:
h1 In this system, the working laser wavelength is set to be 1.55 μm ,
fc′ = ·f ′
h2 II (4) which is eye-safe and commonly used wavelength in LIDAR system. The
purpose is to get a folding scanning optical system based on MEMS with
h2 u p1
=M= FOV extended from 4° to 60° and a parallel emergent light for target
h1 up′ 2 (5) detection at about one hundred meters away.
The focal length of the positive lens in front of MEMS mirror is set to
1
fc′ = ·f ′ be 100 mm, its distance from MEMS micro-mirror is 23.5 mm; as re-
M II (6)
commended, the mechanical tilt angle of MEMS is set to be about ± 4°,
where the parameters h1 and h2 are the heights on the two surface namely, the optical deflection angle of MEMS itself is θ1 = ± 8°(because
planes of the inverted telescope when the light parallel enters; fc′ refers the optical deflection angle is as twice as the mechanical tilt angle). The
to the effective focal length of the combined optical lens group in image parameters of the MEMS used are referred to the product of Mirrorcle
space, while fII′ is the effective focal length of the general photographic Technologies Inc., whose main parameters are listed in Table 1. The
lens. M is the magnification of telescope. up1 and up2 ′ are the incident focal length of f-theta lens is set to be f1 = 100 mm, thus, the maximum

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X. Lee, et al. Optics and Laser Technology 125 (2020) 106013

Fig. 7. Spot Diagram of the designed wide-angle lens group. The scale is 100 μm , where the three lines from the upper left to lower right are the cases corresponding
to the incident angle being (0°, 0°), (0°, 15°); (0°, 21°), (0°, 30°), (0°, −21°) and (0°, −15°), (0°, −30°), respectively.

Table 3 system, the f-theta lens and the wide-angle lens group. Employing the
Design data of the wide-angle lens group (unit: mm). optical design software ZEMAX [17], according to the preset para-
Surf. Radius of curvature Thick Glass Diameter
meters mentioned above, we designed the whole MEMS-based folding
scanning optical system, in which the f-theta telecentric lens group and
OBJ Infinity Infinity 0 wide-angle lens group are the two key components.
1 Infinity 30 68.54
2 179.370 3.98 SK2 45
3 29.271 15 44 3.2.1. Design of the f-theta lens
4 180.996 15 SF16 40 The f-theta lens is composed of three lenses with an effective focal
5 −49.042 15 F5 40 length of 100 mm. The focal powers are consisted of negative, positive
6 −61.627 8.46 40
and positive, respectively, while negative focal power means the lens
STO Infinity 21.10 2.91
8 163.312 15 F5 40 bends towards incident beam side. Their materials are chosen to be
9 −116.561 15 SK16 40 fused silica glass F _SILICA, SF18 and SF18. The radius of curvature,
10 −76.831 0.5 40 central thickness and air spacing are listed in Table 2. Fig. 3 gives the
11 42.195 15 SK16 40
designed diagram by ZEMAX.
12 232.912 0.5 40
13 24.507 15 F_SILICA 40
After careful optimization, the modulation transfer function and the
14 22.521 9.43 30 spot diagram (SPD) of the f-theta lens (see Fig. 4) have reached the
15 Infinity 0 23.63 diffraction limitation; the relative distortion is less than 0.02%, as shown
IMA Infinity 23.63 in Fig. 5. The f-theta lens is optimized as the telecentric system in image
space, which will be benefit for adjusting with the wide-angle lens
group in the next part.
image height in the image plane of the f-theta lens system is
y = 13.96 mm; and then the optical scanning angle after expansion
becomes θ2 = ± 30.17°. From the Eqs. (1) and (2), the entrance pupil 3.2.2. Design of the wide-angle lens group
aperture of the expanding optical system can be calculated and should The emergent beam of the expanding angle lens group is required to
be set as 28 mm with the effective focal length f2 = 24 mm in image be parallel light or approximate parallel light, and the FOV is designed
space, and its F number is 0.86. The design of this so-called wide-angle to be 60°. It is not easy to optimize the emergent beam into a parallel
lens group requires several lenses. light, but we can take the ideas of reverse design, according to the
principle of reversibility of light path. The specific approach is as fol-
lows: assuming that the magnification M = 2 , i.e. the incident angle of
3.2. ZEMAX design of the scanning system telescope is ± 30°, while the emergent angle of telescope comes to be
± 15°, which is the incident angle of positive general photographic lens.
The whole system consisted of three parts–the pre-positive focusing Accordingly, the parameters of positive general photographic lens

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Fig. 8. Entire picture of the MEMS-based folding scanning optical system.

Table 4 4. Results and discussion

Design data of the MEMS folding scanning system (unit: mm).
Surf. Radius of curvature Thick Glass Diameter In design, the emergent angle and spot size of the laser beam in
target surface are the two importance parameters that determine the
1 51.84 4.63 F_SILICA 20 performance of this foldable scanning optical system. Therefore, it is
2 −38.42 0.85
necessary to evaluate these two parameters.
3 −38.21 2.33 SF18 20
4 −88.52 23.5
Firstly, we let the laser with aperture of 1 mm passes this system, the
5a Infinity 0 Mirror 20 relationship between incident angle and emergent angle has been in-
6a 18.31 −10.00 F_SILICA 30 vestigated, as shown in Fig. 9, which reveals that emergent angle is
7a 423.68 −4.25 expanded by approximately 4 times with respect to the original angle.
8a 121.12 −7.07 SF18 40
According to the Eq. (1) and the parameters set above, the expander
9a 35.33 −6.45
10a −4603.44 9.29 SF18 40 factor is about 4.17, which means that the design is confirmed to the
11a 76.27 −19.4 theoretical calculation.
12a 22.521 −15 F_SILICA 40 Secondly, the beam divergence of the laser in different emergent
13a 24.507 −0.5 angles are tested for the target at distance of 30 m, 60 m, 100 m and
14a 232.92 −15.00 SK16 40
15a 42.20 −0.5
160 m. Table 5 gives the detail results. Obviously, the divergence all
16a −76.83 −15 SK1 6 40 beams within the scanning field of 69.80° are only less than 0.825 mrad,
17a 116.56 −15 F5 which is suitable applied for beam scanning in imaging LIDAR with
18a 163.31 −21.10 targets at about one hundred meters.
STOa −8.46 5.62
Thirdly, the laser spot size on target at distance of 30 m, 60 m,
20a −61.63 −15 F5 40
21a −49.04 −15 SK16 100 m and 160 m in different emergent angles are tested, shown as
22a 180.99 −15 Table 6. Within the emergent angle field of view, the spot sizes on the
23a 29.271 −3.98 SK2 44 target within 160 m are less than 10 cm.
24a 179.37 −100000 Obviously, the maximum scan angle can reach up to 69.86° ; in the
a range of 160 m, the spot sizes are less than 10 cm, while the laser beam
Curvature radius and separation of surface 5 to 24 are chosen to be op-
posite of the original value, just because they are behind the mirror represented divergence angle are less than 0.85 mrad, this designed folding scan-
the MEMS in ZEMAX. ning optical system with angle expansion can be used to target at dis-
tance of about 100 m.
should be as follows: f II′ = 48 mm, incident angle is ± 15°, the max- It must be pointed out that the beam diameter will directly affect the
imum image height is twice as that of telescope lens system. spatial resolution of the target. Here we can discuss the spatial re-
In ZEMAX design, let the object at limitless distance and set the solution in the case of a distance of about 100 m. Assuming that the
maximum incident angle to be ± 30°, the pupil aperture is 28 mm; the maximum scanning angle of the MEMS is 60°, the horizontal resolution
stop is placed between them, the lenses group can be finally optimized and vertical resolution of the lidar applied to the driverless vehicle are
to be a telecentric system with effective focal length of 24 mm and 0.1–0.2° and 0.5°, respectively. The number of points scanned in target
maximum height of 14 mm. space is 600 × 120 = 72000 . In the scanning target space, the horizontal
Fig. 6 gives the effective graph, and Fig. 7 reveals the SPD on image distance between two adjacent points is equal to
plane at different incident angles, which informs us that the uniform 100 × (0.1/180 × 3.14) = 17 cm, while the diameter of laser beam at
spots in image plane are all less than 0.1 mm. The relevant ZEMAX 100 m is less than 10 cm, so the two adjacent scanning points can be
design parameters are listed in Table 3. completely distinguished in the horizontal direction. In the vertical
direction, the distance between two adjacent points
100 × (0.5/180 × 3.14) = 87 cm > 10 cm, which indicates that the
3.2.3. The entire foldable MEMS scanning system vertical direction of two adjacent scanning points can be completely
Combining the f-theta lens and the wide-angle lens group, and ad- distinguished. The above discussion shows that the spatial resolution of
justing the distance between them, it is easy to get the entire folding the designed scanning optical system is 100% when the laser beam spot
scanning optical system based on MEMS. is less than 10 cm at the target distance of 100 m.
Fig. 8 shows the design effect diagram of the entire MEMS folding Compared with the traditional optical angle expansion system de-
optical system. For clarity of expression, the relevant parameter values scribed in Ref. [15], our new system has distinct advantages in optical
are still listed in Table 4. performances, including the beam divergent angle with small range of
variation, suitable spot-size within detecting distance of about 100 m

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X. Lee, et al. Optics and Laser Technology 125 (2020) 106013

Fig. 9. Relationship between the emergent angle of the designed scanning optical system θ2 and the optical title angle of MEMS θ1, where the red line with square
represents for fit line with function θ2 = 4.17 ∗ θ1, all the angles refer to half angles.

Table 5 situation, we propose a new method to get large scanning angle, i.e.
Beam divergence of different target distances and directions. adding an f-theta lens group and a wide-angle lens group into the tra-
Distance 0° 16.39° 23.41° 34.93°
ditional MEMS-based optical angle expansion system.
/m /mrad /mrad /mrad /mrad We have discussed the principle of optical angle expansion, and
have given the relationship between emergent angle and incident angle.
30 0.274 0.730 0.825 0.466 The completion of angle expansion depends on the relationship be-
60 0.279 0.368 0.414 0.234
100 0.280 0.368 0.415 0.237
tween spot size of incident laser beam on lens surface, focal length and
160 0.283 0.371 0.415 0.237 FOV. Under the condition that the optical tilt angle θ1 and the emergent
angle θ2 are known first, if we choose the right image height y, through
Note: all the angles in table refer to the half angles. adjusting the two focal lengths f1 and f2 appropriately, the large scan-
ning FOV will be achieved at last.
Table 6 Employing the optical design software ZEMAX, we have designed a
Beam sizes of different target distances and directions. folding scanning optical system based on MEMS mirror. We have de-
Distance Spot at Spot at Spot at Spot at scribed the design of two important parts–the f-theta lens and wide-
/m 0° /cm 16.39° /cm 23.41° /cm 34.93° /cm angle lenses group in details. The ideas of reverse design, according to
the principle of reversibility of light path, was used in the optical design
30 1.69 2.3 2.71 1.72
of the wide-angle lens group.
60 2.82 2.32 2.72 1.73
100 4.54 3.86 4.54 2.90
We also evaluated the scanning angle range after expansion and the
160 4.55 6.21 7.25 4.64 divergence of laser beam that lidar designer much concerned. The de-
signed folding scanning optical system can scan in a large angle field of
Note: all the angles in table refer to the half angles. view (greater than 60°); the spot size at distance of about 160 m is less
than 10 cm. This new MEMS-based scanning optical system can have an
and enough scanning FOV. important application in 3D imaging lidar systems.
The mainly characteristics of this scanning system is that one of the
two important parts, f-theta lens, is optimized to be a telecentric lens in Appendix A. Supplementary material
image space, which is benefit for adjusting the their distance con-
veniently. Meanwhile, the other important part wide-angle telecentric Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the
lens group with short focal length is also designed to be telecentric lens online version, at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optlastec.2019.106013.
in image space, which is useful for laser beam to be projected onto
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