Design and performance of an integrated Doppler lidar instrument for ego velocity determination in UAVs

We report the system design of an integrated ego velocity instrument to optically measure the 3D speed of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the absence of GNSS signals. Using a commercial frequency-modulated continuous-wave Doppler lidar, custom electronics and integration mechanics as well as additional sensors, the UAV-compatible Doppler instrument has been developed at ASENSE as part of a research project on autonomous vehicle navigation. We discuss the ego velocity algorithm and handling of outliers, and the performance of the instrument in terms of 3D ego velocity determination from a moving vehicle, as well as line-of-sight velocity accuracy and precision.