Novel DMD-based Lidar and Display Systems

Abstract

Digital Micromirror Devices (DMD) have been used in prescribed optical architectures for decades with very little deviation. These prescribed architectures most commonly include F-number-limited illumination to project a binary spatially-modulated DMD to a distant plane. Rather, this dissertation investigates four optical architectures, two for lidar applications and two for display applications, that deviate from the prescribed design forms. First, an imaging lidar system is presented that reverses the typical architecture: an illuminated field is imaged onto a DMD for spatial scanning and coupled to a detector. Second, DMD-based programmable blazed grating beam steering is multiplexed with spatial modulation for Angular Spatial Light Modulation (ASLM). The ASLM technique is employed as a holographic beam steering mechanism for a lidar system for increased angular resolution and field of view. Third, the ASLM technique is implemented into a multi-display system to increase the effective output pixel count of the DMD. Fourth, a cascaded DMD expansion design is demonstrated for a 1440-perspective gigapixel display. The four presented architectures demonstrate enormous untapped potential for DMD-based optical systems, despite the last 30+ years of DMD system development.