Dr. Paul Khanna of IEEE

The ability to move people and goods safely, efficiently, and reliably is becoming a real need in our fast-changing world. Self-driving vehicles (SDV) promise a new way of transportation which has the potential to eliminate accidents caused by human errors and free up vehicle drivers.

Several technologies are being used for the vehicle perception systems to detect the presence of vehicles, people and other moving or fixed obstacles. These include camera, radar, and sonar sensors. LiDAR is a new addition to complement the existing options and offers unprecedented resolution, accuracy and imaging quality. LiDAR has started being used in SDVs but considerable challenges exist for mass production and use.

Among the different types of LiDARS common ones are ToF, FMCW and Flash. Main components of a LiDAR include laser source, beam forming & scanning unit and photo detectors, among other technologies. The technology landscape for LiDAR is constantly changing. Advances in Photonics Integrated circuits and Silicon Photonics have the potential to take LiDAR to the next stage of LiDAR on a Chip (LoC) with the right cost, compactness and scalability.

This talk will provide a brief overview and status of modern LiDAR technologies and systems. Various solutions will be introduced and compared. An overview of the market, challenges and trends for automotive LiDARs will be covered.

Biography:

Dr. Paul Khanna, Life Fellow IEEE is a Distinguished Engineer at NI. Paul was instrumental in advancing NI’s capabilities in microwaves, mmW and Optics technologies particularly for applications in automotive RADAR, LiDAR and 5G test solutions. He has also overseen the R&D of components and custom sub-assemblies up to 110 GHz for the development of signal generation and frequency conversion for instrumentation, telecommunication, military markets. Prior to NI, Paul has held several leadership positions at Loral, Avantek, HP/Agilent, Teledyne and at Phase Matrix where he was a Vice president.

He received B.Sc. in Electronics & Electrical Communications from Punjab University (Chandigarh, India) and M.S. and PhD degrees in Microwave & Optical Communications from the University of Limoges (Limoges, France). He has extensively published and patented his work and has been recognized as a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Paul was the General chair of the IMS conference in 2016 and has been the leader of several IEEE MTT sub-committees, both technical and organizational.

He is presently Vice Chair IMSEC among other responsibilities. With more than 60 papers in peer reviewed journals and conferences, 7 US patents, 2 European patents, and many contributions as a teacher, mentor and organizer, Paul is world-renowned, both for his technical contributions and for his IEEE work.

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