Which LIDAR sensor for distance measurement?

ArduCopter
1

Hi all, I am interested in testing distance measurement of different objects (not used for altitude). I need around 20 meters and cannot decide between these 3 sensors. All have advantages and disadvantages:

  • Benewake TF02 Pro: 40m 1000Hz, 50g, $80, 1% accuracy, 3 degree FOV, 100kLux
  • LIDAR-Lite v3: 40m, 500Hz, 22g, $130, 10cm accuracy, 3 degree FOV, ?Lux
  • TeraRanger Evo: 60m, 240Hz, 12g, $110, 1,5% accuracy, 2 degree FOV, ?Lux

How is the ambient light resistance of these sensors and how is it at reflections from obstacles? Somebody tested? Are there other cheaper alternatives from china?

Should not be more expensive than these.

Thanks!

1 Like
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Good day, benewake rangefinders and teraranger tof lidars are both good brands,
Lidar lite v3 is a laser rangefinder and in my opinion it’s s little bit out of date.
Just consider that all lidars suffer the too much sunlight and when happen this the reading will be problematic.
Different lidars for different applications.
If you need to set lidars as obstacles avoidance you need more than one…and in this case you must look for the teraranger tower with 4 evo sensors, but if you need to use only one as altimeter or landing sensor you can opt for the benewake tf02" pro

3

I need the sensor neither for obstacle avoidance nor for the altitude.

I would like to measure the distance to different objects and to use these data to calculate the size of an object.

I am a little concerned about the accuracy of the TF02 Pro and TeraRanger Evo. When it has an accuracy of ±1%, it means ±20cm at 20m distance and ±40cm at 40m distance. TeraRanger Evo 50% more. When the data of the Lidar Lite V3 are correc, it seems more accurate. Why do you think that Laser rangefinders are out of date? I could not find any information about the advantages and disadvantages.

4

you have to consider that laser rangefinder have always a straight line…, while benewake and evo sensors work with an angle.
Laser also need more power consumption.
All lidars are affected by too much light…reflective sourfaces… etc
so the reading will never be accurate.
evo is based on infrared leds… work through the principle of triangulation measuring distance based on the angle of the reflected beam.

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Okay so that means the data I get from a IR laser beam should be more accurate than the ones from IR LEDs?

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it depends on the application you need

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How big are these objects? For example one popular Lidar unit (not cheap), the Lightware SF11, has an aperature of 51mm, a range of 120m and a beam divergence of .2°.

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I do not know yet how big these objects are. The idea is to test it for different objects if I get accurate data from it. I want to test how it works and if it works. For these tests the SF11 would be too expensive. But it also uses IR Laser beams so similar to the Lidar Lite V3?

9

Right, same wavelength device.

10

So that means IR laser systems are in this case more precise?