• 1. The paper presents a new LiDAR scanning method using direct time-of-flight (d-ToF) imaging with SPADs, without requiring histogramming of time stamps.
• 2. The technique emulates distortion-free SPAD detection by simply averaging photon time stamps to extract time-of-flight data. This ensures ease of integration and scalability.
• 3. The authors validate the method through mathematical analysis aligned with Monte Carlo simulations, and test it in a real d-ToF system under high background noise up to 3.8 m range.

This research develops an advanced LiDAR scanning approach, achieving histogram-less operation through linearization of the SPAD detector response. Despite high background noise, the technique maintains accuracy and reliability. This is an important advancement for optoelectronic sensing, with the potential to enable high-performance LiDAR for autonomous vehicles. The key innovations are emulating ideal SPAD behavior and extracting time-of-flight solely by time stamp averaging. Validation is rigorous, encompassing simulations and experiments in a d-ToF system under extreme background noise levels up to 5% pile-up and 3.8 m range. Overall, this work delivers a major step forward for LiDAR and optoelectronic sensing under demanding real-world conditions.