DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 8, 14 and dependents are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Limitation
“wherein the pulse code offset comprises a sequence of N pulse code offsets applied over N lidar frame” is unclear . What does it mean that 1st lidar frame has only 1 pulse code offset, 2nd lidar frame has only 2 pulse code offsets, 3rd lidar frame has only 3 pulse code offsets or for example we have 3 lidar frames and each one of them has 3 pulse codes.
Also issue rises if we have only 1 Lidar frame then how many pulse code offsets we need to have. If only one then last limitation of the claim does not make sense.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1, 8, 14 and claims bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1 US 20210124027 A1.
Regarding claims 1, 8, 14 D1 teaches
1. A method, comprising:
Receiving(fig. 4b), by a lidar detector[0003] during a lidar frame(4a), a reflected laser signal corresponding to a laser pulse(13c, d) emitted by a lidar emitter, wherein the received reflected laser signal is associated with a time bin(14c, 14d) of the lidar frame and with a pulse code offset(14c and 14d are offsets) applied to a laser signal emitted during that lidar frame;(fig 4a)
aggregating, by one or more computing devices, the received reflected laser signal into an avalanche histogram(fig. 4b) at a time bin of the avalanche histogram corresponding with the time bin of the lidar frame, (fig. 4b)
wherein one or more additional received reflected laser signals are further aggregated into the avalanche histogram at corresponding time bins(signals from pulses 13c, 13d) of the avalanche histogram as a set of received reflected laser signals, each of the one or more additional received reflected laser signals having a corresponding pulse code offset; and(fig. 4a, 4b)
decoding, by the one or more computing devices, the set of received reflected laser signals by shifting each received reflected laser signal of the set of received reflected laser signals to a time bin of a decoded avalanche histogram based on the corresponding pulse code offset.(fig. 4b, 5a-c)
wherein the pulse code offset comprises a sequence of N pulse code offsets(at least 2 pulse code offsets for 13 preset for each frame 30) applied over N lidar frame(fig. 2 two lidar frames 30), and wherein the sequence of N pulse code offsets is selected such that a difference between successive offsets in the sequence, d(n) - d(n-1), is a different value for each n.(fig. 3 [0066] implicit as offsets are random then dn-d(n-1) will be different)
Although D1 does not explicitly teach wherein the pulse code offset comprises a cyclic pulse code offset cyclically related to the pulse code offset chousing periodic/cyclic pulse code in transmission is one of simplification of the invention of D1 where pulse code is arbitrary [0070] which is proportional to the emission time. In fig. 2 transmission times are not explicitly periodic but using periodic transmission instead allow for example to check reliability/repeatability of the measurement.
2., 9, 15 The method of claim 1, further comprising:
computing, by the one or more computing devices, a distance of a target based on a grouping of received reflected laser signals within a time bin of the decoded avalanche histogram.(fig. 5c [0075])
7, 20 The method of claim 1, wherein the lidar detector comprises a single photon detector.[0052]
6, 19 The method of claim 1, wherein the pulse code offsets are selected such that a subset of the set of received reflected laser signals corresponding to a reflection from an out-of-range target resolves to scattered bins of the decoded avalanche histogram.
The additional feature of claim 6 would be easily derived from the disclosure of Dl (after compensating received reflected measuring pulses by shifting entities (16) in each histogram (15) to former time based on randomly determined emission times of laser pulses, entities representing correct TOF (20) are overlapped at specific time in each histogram (15) but other entities representing incorrect TOF are scattered around the correct TOF (20) (see paragraphs [0065]-[0068]; and figures 2-5) inherent outcome).
Claim(s) bellow are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D1.
Although D1 does not explicitly say
3, 4, 10, 16, 17 The method of claim 1, further comprising:
decoding, by the one or more computing devices, the set of received reflected laser signals by shifting each received reflected laser signal of the set of received reflected laser signals to a time bin of a cyclically decoded avalanche histogram based on a cyclic remapping of the corresponding pulse code offset(fig. 3b using emission time shift)
wherein Rmax is given as a maximum distance for an in-range target detectable within the lidar frame when the laser signal emitted during the lidar frame is the reflected laser signal, the method further comprising:
computing, by the one or more computing devices, a distance of a target within a range N*Rmax to (N+1)*Rmax based on a grouping of received reflected laser signals within a time bin of the cyclically decoded avalanche histogram, wherein the cyclic remapping corresponds to the range.
The additional features of claims 3-4, 10 are merely matters of design option from the disclosure of D1 (when a measurement range scanned during each measurement interval is divided into a short-section, a mid-section and a far-section, which section a target within the measurement range is located may be determined based on an overlapped histogram generated by detecting randomly emitted measurement pulses with a lidar receiving unit, wherein the randomly emitted measurement pulses are reflected at each section, and a short-region, a mid-region and a far-region of the lidar receiving unit may be selectively activated to detect the reflected measurement pulses (see paragraphs [0021]-[0022], [0040]-[0047]; and figures 2-5)).
5, 18 The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving further comprises:
disarming the lidar detector for a hold-off time duration, wherein the hold-off time duration includes an arm offset applied to a subsequent lidar frame, wherein the arm offset corresponds to an arm code that shifts a time window for arming the lidar detector during the subsequent lidar frame.
The additional feature of claim 5 is merely a matter of design option from the disclosure of Dl (a lidar receivingunit includes a short-region, a mid-region and a far region each activated only if a measurement pulse is received at a short-interval, a mid-interval or a far-interval within each measurement interval (see paragraphs [0040]-[0046])).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art at the time of filing to modify teachings by D1 in order to process different distance regions and to save energy in between measurements.
Conclusion
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/HOVHANNES BAGHDASARYAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3645