• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.1023-1030
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• 2023

FMCW LiDAR system with robust target detection capabilities even under adverse operating conditions such as snow, rain, and fog is addressed in this paper. Our focus is primarily on enhancing the performance of FMCW LiDAR by improving the characteristics of the frequency-modulated laser, which directly influence range resolution, coherence length, and maximum measurement range etc. of LiDAR. We describe the utilization of an unbalanced Mach-Zehnder laser interferometer to measure real-time changes of the lasing frequency and to correct frequency modulation errors through an optical phase-locked loop technique. To extend the coherence length of laser, we employ an extended-cavity laser diode as the laser source and implement a laser interferometer with an photonic integrated circuit for miniaturization of optical system. The developed FMCW LiDAR system exhibits a bandwidth of 10.045GHz and a remarkable distance resolution of 0.84mm.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.335-343
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• 2024

Real-time target signal processing techniques for FMCW LiDAR are described in this paper. FMCW LiDAR is gaining attention as the next-generation LiDAR for self-driving cars because of its detection robustness even in adverse environmental conditions such as rain, snow and fog etc. in addition to its long range measurement capability. The hardware architecture which is required for high-speed data acquisition, data transfer, and parallel signal processing for frequency-domain signal processing is described in this article. Fourier transformation of the acquired time-domain signal is implemented on FPGA in real time. The paper also details the C-FAR algorithm for ensuring robust target detection from the transformed target spectrum. This paper elaborates on enhancing frequency measurement resolution from the target spectrum and converting them into range and velocity data. The 3D image was generated and displayed using the 2D scanner position and target distance data. Real-time target signal processing and high-resolution image acquisition capability of FMCW LiDAR by using the proposed parallel signal processing algorithms based on FPGA architecture are verified in this paper.