Real-time high-precision FMCW laser range extraction method based on a hardware multiplier array.

Abstract

Frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) laser interferometry is an ideal large-scale absolute distance measurement method. It has advantages of high precision and noncooperative target measurement capability, with no blind spot for ranging. To meet the requirements of high-precision, high-speed 3D topography measurement technologies, a faster measurement speed of FMCW LiDAR at each measurement point is required. To solve the shortcomings of the existing technology, a real-time high-precision hardware solution method (including but not limited to FPGA and GPU) for lidar beat frequency signals is provided here based on hardware multiplier arrays to reduce lidar beat frequency signal processing time and to save energy and resource consumption during processing. A high-speed FPGA architecture was also designed for the frequency-modulated continuous wave lidar range extraction algorithm. The whole algorithm was designed and implemented in real time based on the principle of full-pipelines and parallelism. The results show that the processing speed of the FPGA system is faster than that of current top-performing software implementations.