What is OpenLidar?

OpenLidar is a concept for a modular wind lidar to enable collaboration and cooperation on hardware and software. It is limited to the hardware and software that are part of the measurement device and is intended to link with the e-WindLidar ecosystem.

The OpenLidar modular architecture

OpenLidar is based around a clearly defined modular architecture. This modular architecture allows different groups to collaborate on the development of individual modules and then combine their modules into a functioining lidar system.

These modules can be combined into an individual - monolithic - lidar device, similar to commercial devices, or could be be combined into several units (below)

The OpenLidar modules

There are 11 modules in OpenLidar. More details about each module are provided at the linked pages.

1. Power: Power conversion and conditioning, current and voltage control
2. Interlocks: Safety interlocks & Safe operation of the laser and scanner
3. Photonics & Laser source, beam splitter, and detector
4. Optics Beam forming and focusing
5. Scanner & Beam steering, position sensing
6. Controller: Manages the other modules; converts input commands to system actions.
7. Communications: Transfer data to/from the lidar device.
8. Signal processing: Converting Doppler shift to LOS velocity.
9. Storage: Data memory
10. Housing: Weather protection and environmental conditioning.
11. Chassis: Physical carrier for the modules.

These definitions are not complete. We welcome feedback on the description of each module and the content of the files. If you have comments, please open an issue.

About this repository

This repository contains the definitions of the OpenLidar modules.

This includes information about the generic purpose of the modules and how implementations of the modules should be documented.

To provide feedback

Please open an issue.

Acknowledgements

The first module definitions and OpenLidar architecture were developed by Joshua Calafato, Katherine Maul, Frank Modruson IV, and Alan Yeh in 2015 as part of a student study project at the University of Stuttgart.

References

For more information about the OpenLidar concept see

• Ines Würth, Andrew Clifton, Florian Haizmann, Holger Fürst, Steffen Raach, Jennifer Newman, & Nikola Vasiljevic. (2017, June). OpenLidar in Action: Integrating a scanner module into a robust lidar. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3416356.