OFLID: Simple method of overlap factor calculation with laser intensity distribution for biaxial lidar

We proposed a simple overlap factor calculation method based on laser intensity distribution (OFLID), which is simple, practical and can be applied to any specific laser intensity distribution. In order to obtain the laser intensity distribution and parameters of our laser system, we designed a simple experiment to measure them, and then simulated an ideal Gaussian and uniform laser intensity distribution with the measured parameters. The OFLID calculation results indicated that the overlap factor of the measured distribution has approximately half the relative error of that of the ideal Gaussian distribution in the increasing range field for our lidar. Specifically, the laser intensity distribution should be regarded in the overlap correction of the lidar signal. Theoretically, the OFLID method can reduce the error caused by the hypothesis of ideal uniform or Gaussian intensity distributions in the analytical method. In addition, the method is easy to implement for overlap correction, signal simulation and system configuration optimization for biaxial lidar. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.