Automotive sensing: Assessing the impact of fog on LWIR, MWIR, SWIR, visible, and LiDAR imaging performance

Autonomous vehicle sensor suites must perform in a variety of weather conditions to achieve acceptable levels of safety and reliability. Fog is one of the most challenging driving conditions. This paper presents qualitative performance data of thermal infrared (both longwave and midwave), shortwave infrared, and visible-light imaging sensors under different test-chamber fogs. We find that the performance of LWIR imaging is impacted significantly less by light-to-moderate fog than the other two IR sensors, the visible imager, and a low-resolution Velodyne LiDAR. The paper recommends additional fog chamber testing to generate data that will be useful for the development of imaging simulation capability that accurately models fog across these wavebands for improved reliability and coverage in the development of ADAS and autonomous vehicle (AV) vision systems.