Recognition of light-scattering artifacts in lidar

A lidar unit for a vehicle, the lidar unit comprising:

• an emitting unit using which primary light is emitted into an environment of the lidar unit;
• a receiving unit using which secondary light reflected by objects in the environment is detected;
• an evaluation unit, using which, cyclically:
• possible reflection points in the environment at which the primary light was reflected are ascertained from the detected secondary light,
• those portions of the detected secondary light that are assigned to the ascertained reflection points are identified as echo signals, and
• from the signal properties of the identified echo signals, a subset of the echo signals is ascertained which represents an increased reflection at the assigned reflection points compared to a remainder of the echo signals;
• wherein:
• the ascertained subset of the echo signals is temporally tracked over further cycles, and
• the ascertaining of the subset of the echo signals in a cycle is carried out at least depending on a subset of echo signals ascertained in a preceding cycle.

A vehicle, comprising:

• a lidar unit, including:
• an emitting unit using which primary light is emitted into an environment of the lidar unit;
• a receiving unit using which secondary light reflected by objects in the environment is detected;
• an evaluation unit, using which, cyclically:
• possible reflection points in the environment at which the primary light was reflected are ascertained from the detected secondary light,
• those portions of the detected secondary light that are assigned to the ascertained reflection points are identified as echo signals, and
• from the signal properties of the identified echo signals, a subset of the echo signals is ascertained which represents an increased reflection at the assigned reflection points compared to a remainder of the echo signals;
• wherein:
• the ascertained subset of the echo signals is temporally tracked over further cycles, and
• the ascertaining of the subset of the echo signals in a cycle is carried out at least depending on a subset of echo signals ascertained in a preceding cycle

A method for reducing erroneous measurements of a lidar unit, comprising the following steps:

• emitting a primary laser light into a lidar environment;
• receiving and detecting a secondary laser light that has been reflected by objects in the lidar environment;
• ascertaining possible reflection points in the environment at which the primary light was reflected;
• identifying as echo signals those portions of the detected secondary light that are assigned to the ascertained reflection points;
• ascertaining a subset of the identified echo signals from the signal properties of the identified echo signals, wherein the ascertained subset of the echo signals represents an increased reflection at the assigned reflection points compared to a remainder of the echo signals;
• temporally tracking the ascertained subset of echo signals across further cycles,
• determining the subset of echo signals in a cycle, at least depending on the subset ascertained in a preceding cycle.