Patent Document ID: 20140232566
Application ID: 14126012
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for detecting a vehicle located in a detection zone of a roadway having at least one lane, said detection zone on said roadway at least partly covering a width of said lane, the method comprising: providing a multi-channel scannerless full-waveform lidar system operating in pulsed Time-Of-Flight operation, an optical window of said full-waveform lidar system being oriented towards a surface of said roadway in order for said full-waveform lidar system to cover said detection zone; providing at least one initialization parameter for said full-waveform lidar system; using said full-waveform lidar system, emitting pulses at an emission frequency; receiving reflections of said pulses from said detection zone; and acquiring and digitalizing a series of individual complete traces at each channel of said multi-channel system; identifying at least one detection in at least one of said individual complete traces; obtaining a height and an intensity for said detection using said individual complete trace; determining a nature of said detection to be one of an environmental particle detection, a candidate object detection and a roadway surface detection using at least one of said individual complete traces, said height, said intensity and said at least one initialization parameter; if said nature of said detection is said candidate object detection, detecting a presence of a vehicle in said detection zone.