Analysis of the LiDAR sensor for autonomous vehicle

• Κύριος συγγραφέας: Πολίτης, Παύλος
• Άλλοι συγγραφείς: Politis, Pavlos
• Γλώσσα: English
• Έκδοση: 2023
• Θέματα: LiDAR; Autonomous vehicles; Αυτοοδηγούμενα οχήματα; Αυτόνομα οχήματα

The constantly evolving automobile industry has reached the point of perfecting the design of the car with all those materials and alloys that protect the driver from accidents. However, motor vehicle accidents and crashes continue to cause millions of injuries and deaths annually on a global scale. Thus, it is demonstrated that in addition to the correct design for the safety of a car, errors resulting from the human factor must be reduced. Such factors include distraction, speeding on low speed marked roads and in bad weather conditions. Because of these, global automotive industry has been called upon to solve this problem by using technologies that give the car additional automated functions to avoid as many accidents as possible. Through the use of sensors and the combination of their basic characteristics, the optimal result for autonomous driving is obtained. Most basic of all is the lidar sensor, whose analysis we rely on because it tends to be the future in self-driving vehicles. This thesis will analyze in depth and breadth all the concepts related to the autonomous vehicle, while special emphasis will be placed on the lidar sensor. This sensor will be divided into categories and details will be given for each sub-category, followed by a comparison between the most dominant technologies and techniques. To make the work even more comprehensive, the sensors available on the market will be compared with each other and the features that make some patents stand out from all the rest. The title of the thesis is "Analysis of the LiDAR for autonomous vehicle" and for the scientific documentation is presented in the following chapters: Chapter 1: "What is an autonomous car" describes what characteristics make a vehicle autonomous. The levels given by SAE to separate and categorize a car's autonomous capabilities are also given. Chapter 2: "Autonomous Vehicle Sensors" lists the sensors used in the self-driving vehicle and the characteristics of each. Metrics and their requirements are given for a sensor to be useful and safe in the automotive environment. Chapter 3: “LiDAR” is the first chapter we focus on the LiDAR sensor which will be analyzed in depth in this thesis. Its uses in various fields are presented, one of which is autonomous driving, which interests us the most. A quick reference is also made to the first category that LiDARs can be divided into. Chapter 4: "The 4 fundamental choices in technologies and techniques of 3D LiDAR" presents with details and comparative tables the two techniques of LiDAR, the measurement process and the beam steering mechanism and then the two technologies of the 2 basic elements of the LiDAR sensor, the laser and the photodetector. Chapter 5: "Automotive and Industrial LiDAR systems" lists the patents and products of the leading LiDAR companies and finally a comparison table between them.