High Resolution Lidar System Research Articles

A Low-Cost High-Resolution LiDAR System With Nonrepetitive Scanning

Obstacle visualization and detection are essential parts of autonomous driving. The capability of accurately and rapidly collecting 3D information of the surrounding environment plays a key role in driving decisions of autonomous vehicles. As an active detection device, LiDAR enables high-speed and real-time depth information acquisition by emitting laser pulses and then receiving echoes. However, the frame rate and density of the point cloud generated by conventional LiDARs are limited by the fixing trajectory of the beam-steering unit, which cannot satisfy the requirements of various scenes. This paper presented a novel non-repetitive scanning algorithm and a LiDAR prototype using a galvanometer scanner as the beam-steering unit. The algorithm achieves dynamic scanning between frame rate and lateral resolution by the superposition of multiple raw frames with sparser non-repetitive trajectory. The LiDAR was made of off-the-shelf components to limit the cost less than 450 US dollars and extend its application scenarios. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed LiDAR achieved dynamic frame rate and lateral resolution. Each raw frame of point cloud has a lateral resolution of 190×16 and four raw frames with different trajectories synthesize a superposition frame with quadruple resolution of 190×64. Complex profiles of targets become clear with the superposition of multiple raw frames. Thus, the novel non-repetitive scanning improves the LiDAR performance of detecting obstacles with small sizes and maintains the detection of large obstacles at higher speed.

High-resolution lidar observations of mesospheric sodium and implications for adaptive optics

Observations of sodium density variability in the upper mesosphere/lower thermosphere, obtained using a high-resolution lidar system, show rapid fluctuations in the sodium centroid altitude. The temporal power spectrum extends above 1 Hz and is well-fit by a power law having a slope that is -1.95±0.12. These fluctuations produce focus errors in adaptive optics systems employing continuous-wave sodium laser guide stars, which can be significant for large-aperture telescopes. For a 30 m aperture diameter, the associated rms wavefront error is approximately 4 nm per meter of altitude change and increases as the square of the aperture diameter. The vertical velocity of the sodium centroid altitude is found to be ~23 ms(-1) on a 1 s time scale. If these high-frequency fluctuations arise primarily from advection of horizontal structure by the mesospheric wind, our data imply that variations in the sodium centroid altitude on the order of tens of meters occur over the horizontal scales spanned by proposed laser guide star asterisms. This leads to substantial differential focus errors (~107 nm over a 1 arc min separation with a 30 m aperture diameter) that may impact the performance of wide-field adaptive optics systems. Short-lasting and narrow sodium density enhancements, more than 1 order of magnitude above the local sodium density, occur due to advection of meteor trails. These have the ability to change the sodium centroid altitude by as much as 1 km in less than 1 s, which could result in temporary disruption of adaptive optics systems.

Thomson scattering diagnostic systems in the ITER divertor

A diagnostic array has been developed for studying the operating modes of the divertor in the ITER tokamak-reactor using the Thomson scattering technique. The aim of this study is to measure the spatial profiles of the electron temperature and density. The structure of the diagnostic setup was selected on the basis of a classical diagnostic geometry and the high-resolution LIDAR system, which provide access to different regions of the divertor plasma. A severe radiation environment, limited access to the plasma in the ITER divertor, and a high-dust environment (the divertor plate erosion material) in the divertor volume pose many problems for performing diagnostics under unique conditions having no analogs in the tokamaks that are now in operation. Different methods for protecting optical surfaces from plasma-enriched deposition are proposed and analyzed. The efficiency of these methods has been demonstrated in bench tests. The concept of laser and detector systems and diffraction polychromators capable of operating at different electron temperatures with a lower limit of 1 eV, has been justified and approved.

Cirrus Mammatus Properties Derived from an Extended Remote Sensing Dataset

Abstract The first quantitative and statistical evaluation of cirrus mammatus clouds based on wavelet analysis of remote sensing data is made by analyzing the University of Utah Facility for Atmospheric Remote Sensing (FARS) 10-yr high-cloud dataset. First, a case study of cirrus mammata combining a high-resolution lidar system and a W-band Doppler radar is presented, yielding an assessment of the thermodynamic environment and dynamic mechanisms. Then, 25 cirrus mammatus cases selected from the FARS lidar dataset are used to disclose their characteristic environmental conditions, and vertical and length scales. The results show that cirrus mammata occur in the transition zone from moist (cloudy) to dry air layers with weak wind shear, which suggests that cloud-induced thermal structures play a key role in their formation. Their maximum vertical and horizontal length scales vary from 0.3 to 1.1 km and 0.5 to 8.0 km, respectively. It is also found that small-scale structures develop between the large-scale protuberances. The spectral slopes of the lidar-returned power and mean radar Doppler velocity data extracted from the cirrus cloud-base region further indicate the presence of developed three-dimensional, locally isotropic, homogeneous turbulence generated by buoyancy. Finally, comparisons of anvil and cirrus mammata are made. Although both are generated in a similar environment, cirrus mammata generally do not form fallout fronts like their anvil counterparts, and so do not have their smooth and beautiful outlines.