Fusion of lidar and radar for detection of partially obscured objects

The capability to detect partially obscured objects is of interest to many communities, including ground vehicle robotics. The ability to find partially obscured objects can aid in automated navigation and planning algorithms used by robots. Two sensors often used for this task are Lidar and Radar. Lidar and Radar systems provide complementary data about the environment. Both are active sensing modalities and provide direct range measurements. However, they operate in very different portions of the radio frequency spectrum. By exploiting properties associated with the different frequency spectra, the sensors are able to compensate for each other’s shortcomings. This makes them excellent candidates for sensor processing and data fusion systems. The benefits associated with Lidar and Radar sensor fusion for a ground vehicle application, using economical variants of these sensors, are presented. Special consideration is given to detecting objects partially obscured by light to medium vegetation.