LIDAR and Infrared Cameras for ADAS and Autonomous Sensing

This course examines ADAS and autonomous vehicle technologies that offer the potential to increase safety while attempting to optimize the cost of car ownership. LIDAR (light detection ranging) and Infrared camera sensing are seeing a rapid growth and adoption in the industry. However, the sensor requirements and system architecture options continue to evolve almost every six months. This course will provide the foundation to build on for these two technologies in automotive applications. It will include a demonstration model for LIDAR and Infrared camera.

>The course will begin with a review of Infrared basics - electromagnetic spectrum, spectral irradiance, night vision and eye safety. We will then dive into LIDAR – flash, scanning, wavelengths, lasers, detectors, scanners, range and resolution calculations, optics, thermal design, challenges to automotive qualification and sensor fusion. The second half will cover Infrared camera topics with focus on driver monitoring for interior and machine vision for exterior. We will review rolling and global shutter imagers, wavelength selection, use of secondary optics, continuous vs pulsed IRED operation, thermal design, power consumption, eye safety certification and HMI considerations. A brief review of iris recognition, cabin monitoring and face recognition. We will end with a short discussion on trends and challenges facing optical sensing in autonomous vehicles.