Lidar Simulation Using Graphics Hardware Acceleration

Abstract

Modern enhanced and synthetic vision systems (EVS/SVS) often make use of the fusion of multi-sensor data. Thus there is a demand for simulated sensor data in order to test and evaluate those systems at an early stage. We describe an approach for simulating Lidar sensors based on using modern computer graphics hardware making heavy use of recent technologies like vertex and fragment shaders. This approach has been successfully used for simulating millimeter wave radar sensors before. It is shown that a multi sensor simulation suite integrating such different sensors like millimeter wave radar, Lidar or infrared can be realized using principally similar software techniques thus allowing for a unified comprehensive simulator. This approach allows us to use a single consistent data base for multi sensor fusion. Recent graphics hardware offers the possibility of carrying out a variety of tasks in the graphical processing unit (GPU) as opposed to the traditional approach of doing most computations in the computer's CPU. Using vertex and fragment shaders makes these tasks particularly easy. We present a vertex shader solution written in GLSL, the OpenGL shading language. The program computes all necessary view transformations and shading information necessary for Lidar simulation in one pass. This allows high frame rates for real time simulations of even complex flight scenes.