Photonic Sensor for Multiple Targets Detection under Adverse Weather Conditions in Autonomous Vehicles

Detection and tracing of multiple targets in a real-time scenario, particularly in the urban setup under adverse atmospheric conditions, has become a major challenge for autonomous vehicles (AVs). Photonic radars have emerged as promising candidates for Avs to realize via the recognition of traffic patterns, navigation, lane detection, self-parking, etc. In this work we developed a direct detection-based, frequency-modulated photonic radar to detect multiple stationary targets using four different transmission channels multiplexed over a single free space channel via wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). Additionally, the performance of the proposed photonic radar was examined under the impact of adverse weather conditions, such as rain and fog. The reported results in terms of received power and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) showed successful detection of all the targets with bandwidths of 1 GHz and 4 GHz. The proposed system was also tested for range resolution of targets at 150 m and 6.75 cm resolution with 4 GHz bandwidth was reported, while resolution of 50 cm was reported with 1 GHz of bandwidth.