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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in regards to application # 18/722,116 that was filed on 06/20/2024. Claims 13-24 are currently pending and are under examination.
Claim Objections
Claims 13 and 23 are objected to because of the following informalities: the bullet numbering (the ‘o’) at the beginning of lines 9, 10, and 16 in claim 13, and lines 5, 7, 9, and 10 in claim 23 need to be deleted. Appropriate correction is required.
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) 13-23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Levesque et al. (US 7895007) in view of Gurdev et al. (doc. “Deconvolution of Long-Pulse Lidar Profiles”) and Park et al. (“Deconvolution of long-pulse lidar signals with matrix formulation”) and Levesque et al. (US 7895007).
Regarding Claim 13, Levesque discloses a method for processing a signal from a lidar, said lidar performing a time-of-flight measurement and comprising an emitting device configured to emit light pulses in the direction of a scene at an angle greater than or equal to 50 and a receiving device converting reflected pulses to electrical signal ((Levesque, col. 3, line 10-45, lines 50-67, Fig. 1-2) discloses a time of flight lidar system with an emitting device directing pulses towards a scene. Scanning lidar system inherently use beam angle >=50 for practical filed of coverage (Levesque, col 3-4, Fig. 10), and amplification circuit (CA) generating amplified signal (so (t)) (Levesque (col. 5-7, Fig. 1-3) discloses photodetector conversion of reflected pulses to electrical signal plus amplification to produce So(t)),
the method comprising the steps of:
A: digitizing the amplified electrical signal (so (t)) (Levesque (col. 6-8 describes digitizing the amplified return signal prior to further processing));
C: determining a distance (di) of said at least one element (Ei) based on the processed signal (Levesque (abstract, col. 8-10 determine distance from the processed/corrected signal via time-of-flight).
Levesque is silent, but Gurdev teaches step B: applying at least one time correction function, (correcting filter (Ce(t)), to the digitizing signal in order to generate a processed signal (sf(t)), the correcting filter (Ce(t)) being determined based on the impulse response and a predetermined time analysis function, the analysis function having at least one non-zero value (a0, al, a2), referred to as the discontinuity, at a given time referred to as the discontinuity time (td0, tdl, td2), with a return to substantially zero values around the discontinuity ((Gurdev entire document especially sections 2-5 and deconvolution algorithms) teaches applying a correction/deconvolution filter derived directly from the system impulse response to the digitized signal to produce a processed signal (sf(T) equivalent and Gurdev also uses time-domain analytical functions featuring discontinuities or sharp non-zero transitions at specific times(td) followed by return to baseline/zero). Gurdev also teaches step C: determining a distance (di) of said at least one element (Ei) based on the processed signal ((Gurdev sections 5).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the Levesque’s TOF lidar hardware and digitization with the method of using impulse response based deconvolution taught in Gurdev with a reasonable expectation of success to improve ranging accuracy on long pulse returns.
Modified Levesque is silent, but Park in the same area of endeavor explicitly discloses step B: applying at least one time correction function, referred to as the correcting filter (Ce(t)), to the digitizing amplified electrical signal in order to generate a processed signal (sf(t)), the correcting filter (Ce(t)) being determined based on the impulse response and a predetermined time analysis function, the analysis function having at least one non-zero value (a0, al, a2), referred to as the discontinuity, at a given time referred to as the discontinuity time (td0, tdl, td2), with a return to substantially zero values around the discontinuity (correcting filter C^e(t) determined based on impulse response) a matrix based deconvolution technique to construct correction matrices/filters. These are applied to the digitized lidar return signal to recover higher resolution processed signal (see pages 5158-5160. Especially matrix formulation section and equations for deconvolution. Park also teaches time correction function to generate a processed signal sf(t) (the deconvolution produces a corrected higher resolution Lidar profile (processed signal) from the original broadened return (see Abstract and pages 5159-5160 “near range signals can be corrected and small scale variations of back scattered signals can be retrieved”).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the modified Levesque’s impulse response based deconvolution with the efficient matrix technique to implement the correction filter taught in Park with a reasonable expectation of success to improve temporal resolution for accurate distance measurement.
Regarding Claim 14, modified Levesque discloses a method for processing a signal from a lidar wherein applying the correcting filter consists in convolving the digitized amplified electrical signal with said correction time function (Gurdev (sections 3-5, applying the correction Explicitly involves convolution (filtering operation) of the digitized return signal with the time correction function derived from the impulse response to generate the process signal), and wherein said correcting filter is determined by deconvolution of said impulse response by said predetermined analysis function (Gurdev Teaches determining the correction filter through deconvolution using the system impulse response hr(t) and a predetermined analytical time function. Park (page 5158-5160 matrix formulation and equations) Provides the specific deconvolution technique to construct the filter by inverting/ deconvolving the impulse response against the known analysis function) .
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the correction filter via convolution after deriving it through deconvolution of hr(t) with analysis function as taught by Gurdev and enabled by Park’s matrix method with a reasonable expectation of success t provide deconvolution based correction in lidar waveform processing.
Regarding Claim 15, modified Levesque discloses a method for processing a signal from a lidar wherein a presence of said at least one element in said scene corresponds to a local maximum of said processed signal (col. 8-10: after deconvolution/correction peaks (local maxima) in the processed signal correspond to discrete reflection element (targets) in the scene), and said associated distance is determined from a temporal location of said local maximum (abstract, col. 9-10).
Regarding Claim 16, modified Levesque discloses a method for processing a signal from a lidar wherein said impulse response has a maximum at a time tm-imp, and wherein said at least one discontinuity time of the analysis function is located temporally in the vicinity of said time tm-imp (Gurdev section 2-4): The system impulse response hr(t) has a clear maximum or pick at a specific time tm-imp. Analytical functions used in the deconvolution are aligned temporarily near this peak for effective correction).
Regarding Claim 17, modified Levesque discloses a method for processing a signal
wherein the analysis function has zero values outside said at least one discontinuity (Gurdev, Analytical pulse models in sections 3-5: predetermined analysis functions are localized-non zero only at/near the discontinuity and zero (baseline) elsewhere matching really impulse response that decay to zero).
Regarding Claim 18, modified Levesque discloses a method for processing a signal from a lidar wherein the analysis function has either a single discontinuity (AO), or two discontinuities, or three discontinuities, located respectively at discontinuity times close together in time (Gurdev, Iterative deconvolution discussion Section 4-5: Explicit support for single-discontinuity function first, followed by multi-discontinuity discontinuities close in time for refining the process signal).
Regarding Claim 19, modified Levesque discloses a method for processing a signal from a lidar wherein a plurality of correcting filters (Cj(t)) determined from a plurality of analysis functions (hcj(t)) are applied, so as to generate a plurality of associated processed signals (sfj(t)), said distance of said at least one element in the scene being determined from said plurality of processed signals (Gurdev, Iterative/ multi-function approach in sections 4-5): Multiple correction filters from different analysis functions add applied to generate multiple processed signals; final distance uses the combined or refined results).
Regarding Claim 20, modified Levesque discloses a method for processing a signal from a lidar wherein said plurality of correcting filters is applied via an iterative process, until a final processed signal allows the determination of a distance corresponding to the nearest obstacle (Gurdev, sections 4-5, iterative deconvolution: Iterative application of successive correction filters until the processed signal stabilizes for reliable ranging).
Regarding Claim 21, modified Levesque discloses a method for processing a signal from a lidar wherein the iterative process consists in modifying discontinuities, that is non-zero values of said analysis functions(Gurdev, sections 4-5, Iterative refinement sections 4-5: the process modifies/adjusts/refines the discontinuities of the analysis function across iteration).
Regarding Claim 22, modified Levesque discloses a method for processing a signal from a lidar wherein a correcting filter corresponding to an analysis function with a single discontinuity (AO) is first applied, followed by analysis functions with two discontinuities or three discontinuities, said discontinuities being iteratively modified (Gurdev, sections 4-5: Single discontinuity (A0) filter first followed by 2-or-3 discontinuity functions with iterative modification of the discontinuities).
Regarding Claim 23, the apparatus claim 23 is rejected under the same rational as the rejection of the method claim 13. The limitations of method claims 13 is can be implemented by the apparatus of claim 23.
Claim(s) 24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over modified Levesque et al. (US 7895007) as applied to claim 23 in further view of Tomoki et al. (WO2021100644).
Regarding Claim 24, , modified Levesque is silent, but Tomoki teaches a lidar system wherein the amplification circuit (CA) comprising transimpedance amplifier (TIA) (figures 31, 44 and paragraph 64: "SiPM is connected to a transimpedance amplifier..."), a transformer comprising a primary and a secondary, a capacitor(C) (figures 31, 44), the Primary of the transformer being connected to an anode of the photodetector (figure 44 and paragraph 133), the ,secondary being connected to said capacitor, said capacitor being connected to an input of said transimpedance 1mplifier (as in figure 44 and paragraph 133).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the amplification circuit (CA) of modified Levesque with the amplification circuit taught by Tomoki above with a reasonable expectation of success to provide passive high-frequency gain, decouple ambient noise, and isolate the parasitic capacitance of the photodetector.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. (see attached PTO-892).
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Assres H. Woldemaryam
Primary Examiner (Aeronautics and Astronautics)
Art Unit 3642
/ASSRES H WOLDEMARYAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3642
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