Evaluation of 3D measurement performance of laser scanner with simplified receiver optic

Abstract

Development of autonomous drive or control technology for vehicles such as a car or a railway train has become major trends, so there is great need for a 3D measuring system which detects terrains or obstructs on forward area of the vehicle. The authors developed a simplified receiver optical system for the line scan type laser scanner which is one of the 3D measurement methods using laser ranging and mirror scanning. The developed receiver enables to acquire the 3D data with wider FOV (field of view) without a receiver scanner mirror. The receiver optics can spatially resolve the measured area horizontally and can measure the whole vertical FOV without scanning. The composition of the receiver optical system was obtained by an optical simulation. After an evaluation system was constructed combining a laser transmitter, a processing unit and the developed receiver, the performance tests were carried out under indoor and outdoor conditions. In this paper, the main objective is an evaluation of the FOV enlargement function of the developed receiver in vertical direction. And it also describes about the 3D measurement performance of the system using the receiver. The results of tests showed that the vertical FOV was extended 6.6 times with the receiver than a conventional one as designed. And it was verified that the system had 3D measurement capability with target distance error of -0.10 ∼ +0.18m in outdoor test.