Beam pointing angle optimization and experiments for vehicle laser Doppler velocimetry

Abstract

Beam pointing angle (BPA) is one of the key parameters that affects the operation performance of the laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) system. By considering velocity sensitivity and echo power, for the first time, the optimized BPA of vehicle LDV is analyzed. Assuming mounting error is within ±1.0 deg , the reflectivity and roughness are variable for different scenarios, the optimized BPA is obtained in the range from 29 to 43 deg. Therefore, velocity sensitivity is in the range of 1.25 to 1.76 MHz/(m/s) , and the percentage of normalized echo power at optimized BPA with respect to that at 0 deg is greater than 53.49%. Laboratory experiments with a rotating table are done with different BPAs of 10, 35, and 66 deg, and the results coincide with the theoretical analysis. Further, vehicle experiment with optimized BPA of 35 deg is conducted by comparison with microwave radar (accuracy of ±0.5% full scale output). The root-mean-square error of LDV’s results is smaller than the Microstar II’s, 0.0202 and 0.1495 m/s , corresponding to LDV and Microstar II, respectively, and the mean velocity discrepancy is 0.032 m/s . It is also proven that with the optimized BPA both high velocity sensitivity and acceptable echo power can simultaneously be guaranteed.