[davrosthedalek]

I think the problem is more the analog side: If your sensor is saturated by too much light, it might not be able to pick up on your signal anymore. Direct LOS to another high-powered source is probably a lot brighter than what LIDAR normally detects. Then, all the reduction from sync pattern etc don't apply, and the sensor might be blinded considerably longer than the actual signal length if driven to saturation.

[yaantc]

Possibly yes. I was assuming an RF-like behavior where there is indeed saturation of the A/D converter but the blinding doesn't last more than the interfering signal (or negligibly so). But these are for timescales in multiple of us not ns. For ns level time scales maybe it's a bit different, but if it's not too different the low air time usage would avoid problems here too. The blinding pulse would mean an angle between two circles in space (angle from the interfering direction, circles corresponding to distances associated to the blinding pulse start/stop with respect to the last interfered LIDAR own previous pulse transmission) would loose any echo and become blind. With the vehicles moving such a "lost patch" would not be fixed either, and interpolation based on past and surrounding data is possible.