The irradiating field of view of imaging laser radar under fog conditions in a controlled laboratory environment

This paper theoretically and experimentally investigates the performance of the imaging laser radar (ILR) system under the fog condition. Fog is generated and controlled homogeneously within a dedicated indoor atmospheric chamber. A physical model of the reflected laser pulses due to fog and a standard Lambertian target are developed to determine the width of each echo pulse for different fog concentrations. We show that there is a good agreement between the predicted and measured results for the width of backscattered return pulses. Based on experimental results an empirical model of the horizontal and vertical irradiating field of views (FOVs) of ILR under different visibilities is also developed. Consequently, a new model is proposed to predict the horizontal and vertical irradiating FOVs of ILR by using the width of the backscattered return pulse under different fog conditions. The reported results can be used to dynamically adjust the scanning interval based on the variation of the irradiating FOVs of laser radar and improve the precision of target ranging and imaging.