Waymo LLC

Kanika Sachdev

Caner Onal

Pierre-yves Droz

Michael Marx

Yuchi Wang

Jingyuan Linda Zhang

Example embodiments relate to differential methods for determining environment estimation, lidar impairment detection, and filtering. An example embodiment includes dividing a plurality of lidar device channels into a first group and a second group and interleaving the channels. The embodiment includes applying a threshold to the first group. The embodiment further includes emitting light pulses from a lidar device into an environment surrounding the lidar device, and detecting return light pulses. The return light pulses in the first group of channels are sampled from the signals that exceed the threshold. The embodiment may further include determining a differential in a statistical distribution between the return light pulses in the first group and the return light pulses in the second group. Based on the differential, the method can include detecting an atmospheric scattering medium in the environment surrounding the lidar device.

Differential methods for environment estimation, lidar impairment detection, and filtering

An example method and system for filtering point cloud data includes obtaining point cloud data from a LIDAR device. The point cloud data may include at least a first pulse-length range and a second pulse-length range. The first range may include one or more first-length pulses and the second range may include one or more second-length pulses. The method may further include filtering the point cloud data by determining respective magnitudes of each of the one or more first-length pulses and each of the one or more second-length pulses, comparing the magnitudes of the first-length pulses to a first threshold, comparing the magnitudes of the second-length pulses to a second threshold, and removing any pulses having a magnitude less than the respective thresholds. The method may further include determining, based on the filtered point cloud data, objects in an environment around the LIDAR.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Kanika Sachdev