Doppler Measurement of Modulated Light for High Speed Vehicles

Technical details associated with a novel relative motion sensor system are elaborated in the paper. By utilizing the Doppler effect, the optical sensor system estimates the relative motion rates between the sensor and the moving object equipped with modulating light sources and relatively inexpensive electrical components. A transimpedance amplifier (TIA) sensing circuit is employed to measure the Doppler shift exhibited by the amplitude modulated light sources on the moving platform. Implementation details associated with the amplitude modulation and photo-detection processes are discussed using representative hardware elements. A heterodyne mixing process with a reference signal is shown to improve the signal-to-noise ratios of the Doppler shift estimation processing pipeline. Benchtop prototype experiments are used to demonstrate the utility of the proposed technology for relative motion estimation applications.