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Modeling of FMCW lidar detection technology based on optisystem

ZhongYang Zhang1, a, Yuan Kong1, b, YiFei Wang1, c, Gang Li2, d
1
Guilin University of Electronic technology, Lingchuan, Guilin, Guangxi, China
2
College of Foreign Studies of Guilin Institute of Information Technology, Lingchuan, Guilin, Guangxi, China
a
email: [email protected], bemail: [email protected], cemail: [email protected]
Corresponding author: demail: [email protected]

Abstract
Nowadays, with the continuous development of science and technology, people's requirements for ranging accuracy and
detection speed are also increasing. Based on the principle of frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) lidar rang-
ing, a simulation ranging scheme is designed and a simulation model is established. The system is modeled and simulated
by optisystem software, The relationship between frequency modulation (FM) time, FM bandwidth and measuring dis-
tance accuracy is studied, and the effects of different scanning parameters on the final measurement distance and meas-
urement accuracy are discussed from two aspects of time and frequency. The time delay of the target at 30m, 60m and
90m when the frequency modulation bandwidth is 300Mhz is simulated and tested, and the time delay at 30m when the
frequency modulation bandwidth is 50m, 100m and 200m is tested. The distance can be deduced by processing the fre-
quency of echo signal and local oscillator signal and calculating the frequency of beat. It has great advantages in detection
accuracy and detection speed.

1. Introduction 2. Materials and Methods

Lidar is based on photoelectric radiation technology and
microwave radar technology. With the continuous devel- 2.1 The ranging principle of FMCW lidar
opment of the mature technical system of microwave radar FMCW laser ranging technology is used to modulate the
technology, the whole lidar system has been developed frequency of laser transmitting signal. The distance of the
from military to commercial [1, 2]. With the development target [3] is determined by measuring the beat frequency
of photoelectric radiation technology, the sensitivity and signal frequency generated by the reflected signal and the
speed of laser detection technology have been improved. local vibration signal, so as to calculate the beat frequency.
According to the different carrier signals of laser, lidar can As shown in Figure 1, the principle of the FMCW lidar
be divided into continuous radar and pulse radar. Pulse ra- ranging system is that the carrier signal with specific fre-
dar takes pulse signal as carrier signal and determines tar- quency modulation period and frequency modulation slope
get distance by measuring the time difference between generated by the FMCW signal generator and the laser are
pulse transmitting and receiving. Pulse radar system has modulated into frequency modulation light signal.
simple working principle, but its accuracy and sensitivity Deflection of the optical transmission system to save spec-
are low. Continuous wave radar has many forms, including troscope FM optical signals can be divided into two parts,
multi-frequency continuous wave, single-frequency con- part as the optical signals of vibration, another part of the
tinuous wave and frequency modulated continuous wave detection signal light target, by receiving the reflected light
(FMCW) lidar. Among them, FMCW lidar has many fre- signal of the target, the reflected light signal combined with
quency modulation (FM) modes. Due to its characteristics the optical signals of vibration after the photodetector and
of high detection accuracy and fast detection, FMCW tech- minus echo signal, will light the echo signal and the local
nology is widely used in high-precision lidar. oscillator signal multiplied to get beat frequency sig-
nal, Further filtering through a low pass filter to eliminate
other signal noise.

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Figure 1. FMCW LiDAR ranging system

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The signal time-frequency curve of the system is shown in is the time between transmitting a laser to a target and then
Figure 2. The solid line in the figure is the laser transmitting returning to the receiving system. The beat frequency is fB
signal at the frequency ft (T), the dashed line is the laser (T).
receiving signal at the frequency fr(T), set the starting fre-
quency to F0, the frequency modulation bandwidth to B, IJ
f
f TX signal
IF signal
RX signal

Sr
Sr

f0 ʏ t
f0 ʏ t
Tc
Tc

Figure 2. The time-frequency curve of the system

The signal curves of echo signal and transmission signal The laser emission signal ft (T) is subtracted from the re-
are triangular waves, but due to the transmission delay [4], ceived echo signal fr (T) to obtain the beat frequency signal
WKHHFKRVLJQDOZLOOKDYHDFHUWDLQGHOD\LQWLPHIJ7KHUHOD ft (T)
tionship with the target distance r is ଶோ஻
݂௕ (‫݂ = )ݐ‬௧ (‫ )ݐ‬െ ݂௥ (‫= ߬ߙ = )ݐ‬ , (߬ ൑ ‫ ݐ‬൑ ߬ + ܶ) (5)
ଶோ ௖்
߬= (1)
௖
After sorting out Equation (5), the formula of target dis-
c in the formula is the speed of light propagation, and its tance R to be measured is as follows.
value is 3×10^8(m/s). ௖்
Set the laser emission signal according to figure 2 ܴ= ݂ (‫)ݐ‬ (6)
ଶ஻ ௕

݂௧ (‫݂ = )ݐ‬଴ + ߙ‫ݐ‬, (0 ൑ ‫ ݐ‬൑ ܶ) (2)

2.2 Modeling and Simulation of FMCW
ĮLQWKHIRUPXODLVWKHPRGXODWLRQVORSH lidar system
஻
ߙ= (3) Based on OptiSystem15.0 platform, FMCW radar system
்
is constructed to verify the correctness of the theoretical re-
Similarly, the received echo signal FR is sults and provide reference for theoretical research.
݂௥ (‫݂ = )ݐ‬଴ + ߙ(‫ ݐ‬െ ߬), (߬ ൑ ‫ ݐ‬൑ ߬ + ܶ) (4) OptiSystem is a simulation software for optical communi-
cation system [5], which can realize the design, testing and
simulation of optical system. The simulation model of
FMCW lidar system is shown in Figure 3.


Figure 3. Simulation of FMCW radar system based on OptiSystem15.0 platform

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The power of fiber laser in the simulation system was set frequency modulated bandwidth B is set as 300Mhz, and
as 40mW, line width as 0.05Mhz, wavelength as 1550nm, the frequency modulated period is set as 10 × 10-6 s.
FMCW signal bandwidth as B=300Mhz (modulation con- The laser module generates the laser with a wavelength of
stant as 300Mhz), and frequency modulation time as 10× 1550nm. The laser is divided into two parts through the
10-6s. R and delay in the window below are the target dis- spectrometer, one part is signal light, the other part is local
tance and fiber delay time respectively, and detailed param- oscillator light. Meanwhile, the separator module divides
eter Settings are shown in Figure 4. the frequency modulated continuous wave into two parts,
one part is carrier signal, the other part is local oscillator
wave of electrical signal.
By processing the carrier signal, the Mach-Zehnder modu-
lator module loads the frequency modulated continuous
wave with a bandwidth of 300Mhz onto the signal light,
and amplifies and transmits the optical signal through a
40dB optical gain amplifier.
The optical delay module simulates the time between laser
transmitting and receiving the reflected light. In this simu-
lation system, different light delay parameters are set to
change the time between laser transmitting and receiving
the reflected light again, so as to simulate the target ranging
from different distances, so as to observe the different beats.
After reflection objects into the laser receiving module, in
this simulation system, reflective laser into the receiving
module, receiving module of the subtracter reflected light
signal with the reference light signal subtraction processing,
get the frequency modulation continuous wave, continuous
wave signal and local shock wave through the multiplier
eventually beat frequency signal in the process of mixing,
through a low-pass filter, observe the time domain and fre-
Figure 4. Parameter Settings quency domain signal output.
The experimental data setting of the distance experiment in
The sawtooth wave generator module in the system gener- this system is shown in Table 1, where R is the distance
ates sawtooth wave rising from 0 to 10us, and is connected from the laser emitter to the target, t is the time delay be-
to a frequency modulator as the input to generate a fre- tween the reflected signal received by the system and the
quency modulated continuous wave with an initial fre- transmitted signal, and fb is the frequency of the beat signal
quency of 100Mhz and an end frequency of 400Mhz. The obtained.

Table 1.Main parameter settings of simulation

R/m 30 60 90
t /s 0.2h10-6 0.4h10-6 0.6h10-6
ࢌ࢈ /Hz 6.0h106 12.0h106 18.0h106

After setting the parameters, the simulation experiment of

lidar system is carried out. The results are shown in the fig-
ure.
˄D ˄E ˄F
$( $(
$(
5  5 
5 

Figure 5. Beat signal at a distance of 30m, 60m and 90m


The above four spectrum waveforms have only one peak reference and received FM waveforms. At this time, the
measured at different distances when the bandwidth is frequency is 6.0×106Hz, 1.2×107hz and 1.8×107Hz.By
300M. The peak is a beat signal generated by mixing the comparing the results with the theoretical beat frequency in

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Figure 1, it can be concluded that the simulation results are Set R to 30m and keep it unchanged. Adjust the bandwidth
in good agreement with the theoretical values. to 50Mhz,100Mhz and 200Mhz respectively. The actual
Adjust the frequency modulation bandwidth to test the in- simulation data is as follows:
fluence of frequency modulation bandwidth on measure-
ment accuracy.

˄G ˄H ˄I
$( $( $(
%  %  % 

Figure 6. Beat signals with B = 50Mhz, B = 100Mhz and B = 200Mhz

As can be seen from the figure, the frequencies are References

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cal values. photonic integrated circuit transceiver for FMCW Li-
DAR[J]. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum
Electronics, 2019, 25(6): 1-7.
3. Conclusions [3] Areann M-C, Bosch T, Lescure M. Laser ranging: a
This paper starts with the basic principle of FMCW lidar critical review of usual techniques for distance meas-
ranging system, and uses the optical system software to urement [J]. Opt. Eng, 2001, 40(1).
conduct modeling and simulation experiments to verify the [4] Iovescu C, Rao S. The fundamentals of millimeter
feasibility of FMCW lidar ranging system. By comparing wave sensors[J]. Texas Instruments, 2017: 1-8.
the theoretical value with the simulation result, it can be [5] Khadir A A, Dhahir B F, Fu X. Achieving optical fiber
seen that when the bandwidth is fixed and the distance of communication experiments by optisystem[J]. Inter-
the target is changed, the beat signal obtained is basically national Journal of Computer Science and Mobile
the same as the theoretical beat signal calculated with a lin- Computing, 2014, 3(6): 42-53.
ear relationship. When the distance is unchanged and the
bandwidth is changed, the simulation result obtained is also
basically the same as the theoretical value calculated. The
linear relationship proves the feasibility of FMCW lidar
ranging system. However, since there is no actual system
construction measurement, there may be other interference
factors. In the actual experiment, there may be some devi-
ation between the simulation result and the theoretical
value due to various environmental factors and instrument
errors.

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