Light scattering by spherical particles for data interpretation of mobile lidars

We present a solution to the problem of light scattering by spherical particles, adapted for interpreting the signals of portable lidars for autonomous vehicles. The solution was obtained for typical wavelengths used in laser sensing tasks: 0.355, 0.532, 0.905, 0.940, 1.064, 1.55, 2.15, and 10.6 mu m. The solution was obtained within the framework of the Mie scattering theory for water and ice. The inherent high-frequency oscillations in the backscattering direction are smoothed out by means of a moving average, which allows one to construct fast and efficient algorithms for particle size distributions observed in the atmosphere. The resulting solution is presented in the form of a data bank, which is available in the public domain. (C) 2020 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)