SMART-Degradation: A Dataset for LiDAR Degradation Evaluation in Rain

Sensor degradation is one of the major challenges for autonomous driving. During the rain, the interference from raindrops can negatively influence LiDAR measurements. For example, valid measurements could be reduced during the rain, and some measurements may become noisy. Unreliable measurements can lead to potential safety issues if autonomous driving systems are unaware of these changes. In this work, we will release a naturalistic driving dataset to advance the research in studying LiDAR degradation. Our dataset consists of 3D LiDAR scans collected by a data collection vehicle under various rainy conditions. Besides these raw scans, we also release LiDAR scan pairs (each pair consists of one scan from rainy weather and one scan from clear weather at the same location). These LiDAR pairs are developed to help researchers identify LiDAR degradation. Finally, we will release a toolbox integrated with mapping, localization, and scan synthesis functions used to create this dataset. This toolbox can facilitate dataset creation for studying degradation in other harsh weather conditions.