Investigation of Geiger-mode detector in multi-hit model for laser ranging

The performance of detector limits the overall performance of laser ranging system. And the design of multi-hit detector is one of the feasible ways to promote the performance of detector. Currently, the segmentation method or the recursive method is commonly used to analyze the multi-hit detector model. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to propose a combinatorial method to solve the multi-hit detector model from the perspective of discrete time. Then, universal formulas of total signal detection probability and the average count are deduced based on the Poisson distribution signal. Furthermore, analysis is made to figure out how the average count changes with different parameters, such as the dead time, gating time, rate intensity. As a result, for GM-APD, the multi-hit detector model is verified advantageously compared to the single-hit detector model in improving the average count theoretically. Meanwhile, a discrete step feature is presented when average count changes with dead time or the gating time, which is of great significance in gating time optimization.