Method for providing information on rainy environment by referring to point data acquired from a LiDAR sensor and computing device using the same

A computing device for providing information on rainy environment by referring to a plurality of point data acquired from a LiDAR sensor, comprising:

• at least one memory which saves instructions;
• at least one processor configured to execute the instructions to perform or support another device to perform processes of:
• (I) on condition that a detection area is determined as an area of within a specific distance from the LiDAR sensor mounted on an autonomous vehicle, and laser transmission pulses are emitted through a 1-st layer to an N-th Layer of the LiDAR sensor, where N is an integer greater than 1, acquiring all the point data from laser reflected pulses, each of which is detected in response to each of the laser transmission pulses, within the detection area;
• and (II) accumulating specific point data, among all the point data, which satisfy a specific criterion related to the rainy environment over a period of time, and detecting the rainy environment by referring to the accumulated specific point data;
• (III) determining, as an object, a region where each of intensities of a plurality of new point data is greater than or equal to a 2-nd threshold intensity by referring to the new point data acquired from new laser reflected pulses, and clustering 1-st partial new point data corresponding to the object, thereby detecting a bounding box of the object, wherein the bounding box represents a first-type virtual box circumscribing the object or a second virtual box enlarging the first-type virtual box;
• (IV) monitoring a movement of the object to compute a rear trajectory region of the object, and determining a total target detecting region which includes the bounding box and the rear trajectory region of the object;
• and
• (V) additionally determining raindrops bouncing due to the object by referring to 2-nd partial new point data, whose intensity is less than a 3-rd threshold intensity, among a subset of the new point data in the total target detecting region.