Autonomously driven vehicles operate in rain, snow and other adverse weather conditions. An on-board vehicle sensor has a beam with a diameter that is only intermittently blocked by rain, snow, dust or other obscurant particles. This allows an obstacle detection processor is to tell the difference between obstacles, terrain variations and obscurant particles, thereby enabling the vehicle driving control unit to disregard the presence of obscurant particles along the route taken by the vehicle. The sensor may form part of a LADAR or RADAR system or a video camera. The obstacle detection processor may receive time-spaced frames divided into cells or pixels, whereby groups of connected cells or pixels and/or cells or pixels that persist over longer periods of time are interpreted to be obstacles or terrain variations. The system may further including an input for receiving weather-specific configuration parameters to adjust the operation of the obstacle detection processor.

A laser scanner and a system with a laser scanner for measuring an environment. The laser scanner includes an optical distance measuring device, a support, a beam steering unit rotatably fixed to the support which rotates around a beam axis of rotation. The beam steering unit includes a mirrored surface which deflects radiation used in the optical distance measurement and an angle encoder for recording angle data. The optical distance measurement is performed by a progressive rotation of the beam steering unit about the beam axis of rotation and the continuous emission of a distance measurement radiation, the emission being made through an outlet area arranged in the direction of the mirrored surface on the support, the receiving optics for receiving radiation are arranged on the support, and wherein the outlet area has a lateral offset with respect to the optical axis of the receiving optics.

A measuring device can have a scanning functionality for optical surveying of an environment, wherein the measuring device has a sensor comprising an assembly of microcells as a receiving surface and direction-dependent active sections of the receiver are defined depending on the transmission direction of the transmitted radiation, in order to adapt the active receiver surface to a varying imaging position of the received radiation.

A measuring device can have a scanning functionality for optical surveying of an environment, wherein the measuring device has a sensor comprising an assembly of microcells as a receiving surface and direction-dependent active sections of the receiver are defined depending on the transmission direction of the transmitted radiation, in order to adapt the active receiver surface to a varying imaging position of the received radiation.

A photodetector includes a plurality of channels each having a plurality of SPAD units, each SPAD unit having an avalanche photodiode. The photodetector is capable of selecting outputting or non-outputting of the channels. The SPAD unit includes: an active quenching circuit which performs active quenching of the avalanche photodiode; and a control circuit which brings the active quenching circuit which corresponds to the channel where non-outputting is selected into an operable state.

Systems and methods of determining a risk distribution associated with a multiplicity of coverage zones covered by a multiplicity of sensors of an autonomous driving vehicle (ADV) are disclosed. The method includes for each coverage zone covered by at least one sensor of the ADV, obtaining MTBF data of the sensor(s) covering the coverage zone. The method further includes determining a mean time between failure (MTBF) of the coverage zone based on the MTBF data of the sensor(s). The method further includes computing a performance risk associated with the coverage zone based on the determined MTBF of the coverage zone. The method further includes determining a risk distribution based on the computed performance risks associated with the multiplicity of coverage zones.

A method and an apparatus for obtaining information are disclosed. The method includes: determining that a first sensor in environment sensing sensors in a vehicle fails; determining a first detection area of the first sensor, where the first detection area includes a first angle range, and the first angle range is an angle range of a detection angle, of the first sensor, that covers a driving environment around the vehicle; adjusting a second detection area of a dynamic sensor in the vehicle, so that an angle range of the second detection area covers the first angle range, where the angle range of the second detection area is a range of a detection angle, of the dynamic sensor, that covers a driving environment around the vehicle; and obtaining environment information by using the dynamic sensor.

Described herein are various embodiments for identifying miscalibrations in LiDAR sensors installed on an ADV in real time while the ADV is in motion, and notifying a user that the LiDAR sensors needs to be recalibrated. An exemplary method includes calculating an initial number of overlapping cloud points between the cloud point data from a first LiDAR sensor and a second LiDAR sensor; and replacing a set of existing calibration parameters of the second LiDAR sensor with multiple sets of recalibration parameters to calculate multiple revised numbers of overlapping cloud points between the point cloud data. A potential miscalibration can be detected in the first LiDAR sensor or the second LiDAR sensor when the initial number of overlapping cloud points is smaller than at least one revised number of overlapping cloud points. The potential miscalibration can be verified by repeating the above operations multiple times with a time of time following each repetition.

This application discloses a compensation method and apparatus for continuous wave ranging and a LiDAR. The compensation method includes: calculating a reflectivity of an object detected by a receiving unit, querying, based on a preset mapping relation, for a target distance response non-uniformity (DRNU) calibration compensation matrix associated with the reflectivity, and compensating, using the target DRNU calibration compensation matrix, for a distance of the object detected by the receiving unit.

This application discloses a compensation method and apparatus for continuous wave ranging and a LiDAR. The compensation method includes: calculating a reflectivity of an object detected by a receiving unit, querying, based on a preset mapping relation, for a target distance response non-uniformity (DRNU) calibration compensation matrix associated with the reflectivity, and compensating, using the target DRNU calibration compensation matrix, for a distance of the object detected by the receiving unit.