INVESTIGATION OF THE RADIOMETRIC BEHAVIOUR OF A LOW-COST AUTOMOTIVE LIDAR SENSOR

Abstract. Terrestrial LiDAR is an established method for 3D data acquisition in close-range applications. A new category of low-cost LiDAR sensors for autonomous driving has become available with similar specifications. However, these new sensors lack the guarantee of survey-grade performance. Initial experiments have broadly confirmed the specification of one such low-cost sensor but have also raised issues with the radiometric behaviour. This study investigates through practical experiments how the intensity information of the Livox-Mid40 laser scanner is influenced by time, reflectance, distance and angle of incidence. The quantitative analysis of the experiments shows an expected relationship between surface reflectance and recorded intensity. However, the result indicate that intensity can significantly influence the distance measurement at very close ranges.