Phase noise compensation for a frequency modulated continuous wave, fmcw, light detection and ranging, lidar, system

A method for phase noise compensation for a frequency modulated continuous wave, FMCW, light detection and ranging, LIDAR, system, said method comprising:

• receiving, by an optical interferometer, a light signal, wherein the light signal is a FMCW light signal generated by a source of the FMCW LIDAR system;
• splitting, by the optical interferometer, the light signal into a first light signal propagating in a first path and a second light signal propagating in a second path, wherein the first path has a preset delay in relation to the second path, wherein the preset delay corresponds to delay caused by propagation of a preset distance;
• combining, by the optical interferometer, the first and the second light signals having passed the first and the second path, respectively;
• detecting, by a detector, the combined first and second light signals;
• receiving, by a phase noise determination module, a detected signal from the detector;
• determining, by the phase noise determination module, a plurality of phase noise signals corresponding to phase noise signals of integer numbers of the preset delay;
• receiving, by a phase noise compensation module, a LIDAR response signal;
• processing, by the phase noise compensation module, the LIDAR response signal by:
• compensating phase noise in the LIDAR response signal using the plurality of phase noise signals to form a combined compensated LIDAR response signal;
• and
• determining a fast Fourier transform, FFT, of the combined compensated LIDAR response signal for a range of distances to the target encompassing all distances corresponding to the integer numbers of the preset delay.