Sensor and environmental evaluation for vehicles

A system comprising one or more processors configured to:

• receive sensor data generated by a LIDAR sensor of a perception system of an autonomous vehicle, the sensor data including a distance for a point in an environment of the autonomous vehicle and intensity information for the point;
• identify an expected intensity at a location of the point from a pre-stored fair weather reference map;
• determine a meteorological optical range value for the point using the expected intensity at the location of the point and the intensity information for the point, the meteorological optical range value being a distance representative of an effect of one or more atmospheric conditions on the LIDAR sensor;
• dynamically determine an effective detection range for the LIDAR sensor based on:
• a comparison of the expected intensity to the intensity information for the point, wherein the effective detection range corresponds to a distance at which the LIDAR sensor detects an object and identifies one or more characteristics of the object according to one or more threshold minimums;
• and
• the meteorological optical range value;
• and
• control a behavior of the autonomous vehicle based on the effective detection range.

A non-transitory, tangible, computer-readable medium on which instructions are stored, the instructions, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to implement a method, the method comprising:

• receiving sensor data generated by a LIDAR sensor of a perception system of an autonomous vehicle, the sensor data including distance and intensity information for a point in an environment of the autonomous vehicle;
• identifying an expected intensity at a location of the point from a pre-stored fair weather reference map;
• dynamically determining an effective detection range of the LIDAR sensor by comparing the expected intensity at the location of the point to the intensity information for the point, wherein the effective detection range corresponds to a distance at which the LIDAR sensor detects an object and identifies one or more characteristics of the object according to one or more threshold minimums, wherein the one or more threshold minimums include a percentage recall on a Lambertian target;
• and
• controlling a behavior of the autonomous vehicle based on the effective detection range.