Spatio-Spectral 4D Coherent Ranging Using A Flutter-Wavelength-Swept Laser

• Driving even in bad weather with 4D autonomous vehicle eyes
• Development of color modulation 4D lidar sensor technology that reduces environmental noise and inter-vehicle interference

A next-generation ‘autonomous vehicle eye’ that can drive smoothly even in bad weather such as fog, snow, and rain has been created by domestic researchers. It is evaluated that the commercialization has been greatly accelerated by significantly lowering mutual interference between vehicles.

The National Research Foundation of Korea has developed a ‘color modulation 4-dimensional imaging scan’ that realizes imaging even in bad weather environments with severe external noise through industry-academic research conducted by Professor Chang-Seok Kim’s research team at Pusan ​​National University and the electromagnetic energy materials research team at Hyundai Motor Company’s Basic Materials Research Center. It was announced that they had succeeded in implementing the FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) method of LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) technology using technology.

Instead of the existing laser that outputs only a single, fixed color, this new method scans the wavelength color of laser light in a wide band while also modulating the color by fluttering in a narrow band.

Through this, it is available to overcome the technical limitations of the general spatial imaging scanning method, which relies on mechanical rotation and is vulnerable to vibration and shock.

The results of this research, conducted with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea, were published online on February 6 in Nature Communications, a sister journal of the world-renowned science journal Nature.