3D Point Cloud Generation Based on Low-Cost and Portable FMCW Radar for Poor-Visibility Environments

Abstract

There are many problems that occur in situations, such as fires, because the visibility of the emergency responders is limited. There are some studies that are aimed at solving these problems, but they are difficult to apply in practice due to being affected by the surrounding environment or failing to support the mobility of the emergency personnel. This paper presents a method about generating a 3D point cloud using Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar for emergency responders in situations where visibility is limited. The proposed method scans a predetermined horizontal range to detect objects, and it analyzes changes in the receive power rate to estimate their precise location. The radar beam then heads to the location of the detected object and estimates the height of the object by a similar process in the vertical direction. As a result, it has a precision of 86.8%, which includes up to a 50% improvement in the antenna numbers and area and a 56.3% improvement in the runtime.

Keywords

• 3D point cloud
• FMCW radar
• imaging radar
• poor-visibility environment