apk xda

Researchers have developed a new laser powered camera system that creates high-resolution 3-D images of objects from up to a kilometre away.

A standard camera takes flat, 2-D pictures. To get 3-D information, such as the distance to a far-away object, scientists can bounce a laser beam off the object and measure how long it takes the light to travel back to a detector.

The technique, called time-of-flight (ToF) navigation systems for autonomous vehicles, and other applications, but many current systems have a relatively short range and struggle to image objects that do not reflect laser light.

Researchers have tackled these limitations and reported their findings in the journal Optics Express.

The research team, led by Gerald Buller, professor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, describes a ToF imaging system that can gather high-resolution, 3-D information about objects that are typically very difficult to image, from up to a kilometre away.

The new system works by sweeping a low-power infrared laser beam rapidly over an object. It records, pixel-by-pixel, the round-trip flight time of the photons in the beam as they bounce off the object and arrive back at the source.

The system can resolve depth on the millimetre scale over long distances using a detector that can "count" individual photons.