• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.59-70
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• 2020

We discuss a modified numerical model based on the Monte Carlo radiative transfer (MCRT) method, i.e., the MCRT matrix method, for the analysis of atmospheric scattering effects in three-dimensional flash LIDAR systems. Based on the MCRT method, the radiative transfer function for a LIDAR signal is constructed in a form of a matrix, which corresponds to the characteristic response. Exploiting the superposition and convolution of the characteristic response matrices under the paraxial approximation, an extended computer simulation model of an overall flash LIDAR system is developed. The MCRT matrix method substantially reduces the number of tracking signals, which may grow excessively in the case of conventional Monte Carlo methods. Consequently, it can readily yield fast acquisition of the signal response under various scattering conditions and LIDAR-system configurations. Using the computational model based on the MCRT matrix method, we carry out numerical simulations of a three-dimensional flash LIDAR system operating under different atmospheric conditions, varying the scattering coefficient in terms of visible distance. We numerically analyze various phenomena caused by scattering effects in this system, such as degradation of the signal-to-noise ratio, glitches, and spatiotemporal spread and time delay of the LIDAR signals. The MCRT matrix method is expected to be very effective in analyzing a variety of LIDAR systems, including flash LIDAR systems for autonomous driving.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.573-586
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• 2012

Point clouds acquired by a LIDAR(Light Detection And Ranging, also LADAR) system often contain erroneous points called outliers seeming not to be on physical surfaces, which should be carefully detected and eliminated before further processing for applications. Particularly in case of LIDAR systems employing with a Gieger-mode array detector (GmFPA) of high sensitivity, the outlier ratio is significantly high, which makes existing algorithms often fail to detect the outliers from such a data set. In this paper, we propose a method to discriminate outliers from a point cloud with high outlier ratio acquired by a GmFPA LIDAR system. The underlying assumption of this method is that a meaningful targe surface occupy at least two adjacent pixels and the ranges from these pixels are similar. We applied the proposed method to simulated LIDAR data of different point density and outlier ratio and analyzed the performance according to different thresholds and data properties. Consequently, we found that the outlier detection probabilities are about 99% in most cases. We also confirmed that the proposed method is robust to data properties and less sensitive to the thresholds. The method will be effectively utilized for on-line realtime processing and post-processing of GmFPA LIDAR data.