Time of flight LIDAR ranging and error analysis under smog conditions

Time of flight light detection and ranging (TOF LiDAR) is the main detection technology solution used in the mainstream LiDAR products at present. Smog has a certain interference effect on the laser, which affects the ranging accuracy of TOF LiDAR system. This paper focuses on the accuracy of TOF LiDAR ranging under smog conditions and the error analysis. A vertical cavity surface emitting laser is selected to emit a pulsed laser through a smog-filled smog chamber, a CMOS sensor is used to receive the reflected light, and the experimental data are collected using the host computer software. The collected data are then extracted from the effective area and processed with algorithms such as average filtering. Finally, the image of each pixel with the measured distance and the error situation are obtained. The effect of smog is simulated by increasing the system delay time to obtain the simulated image under smog conditions. The results obtained from the TOF LiDAR smog experiment are compared with the simulation results, and it can be seen that the smog has a significant attenuation effect on the laser transmission, with the attenuation ratio up to 63.99%, and the range error under the smog condition decreases by 53.55%, and the accuracy of the range measurement is improved.