Real-Time Simulation of Precipitation Effects on LiDAR

This paper proposes a real-time simulation approach to investigate the impacts of precipitation on a LiDAR sensor, which is a crucial component in a LiDAR-based automated driving system that can be experimented with in hardware-in-the-loop testbenches. One of the challenges with such an approach is to simulate the realistic spatial distribution of precipitation in real-time since precipitation is a highly intricate physical phenomenon. Our approach addresses this challenge by incorporating measured LiDAR precipitation reflections into the simulated point cloud of LiDAR. Our model also simulates the mirror reflection from the wet road surface, which improves the model accuracy. The results of our study demonstrated that this integrated approach is capable of providing both real-time computation and realistic representation of the impacts of precipitation on LiDAR functionality.