ECE PhD Prospectus Defense: Alfred Krister Ulvog

ECE PhD Prospectus Defense: Alfred Krister Ulvog

Title: Robust Estimation for Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave Lidar with Sub-Nyquist Samples

Presenter: Alfred Krister Ulvog

Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Time: 1:00PM - 3:00PM

Location: 8 St. Mary’s St, Room 339

Advisor: Professor Vivek Goyal

Chair: Professor Hamid Nawab

Committee: Professor Vivek Goyal, Professor Hamid Nawab, Professor David Castañón

Google Scholar Link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CSVBIEAAAAAJ&hl=en&authuser=2

Abstract: Frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) lidar has gained popularity for its high precision and resolution in range estimation. Common approach to estimating time delays and Doppler shifts in FMCW lidar assumes linear frequency modulation while disregarding portions of the received signal, which leads to more design constraints and reduced unambiguous range from information loss. In this work, we challenge the conventional processing of FMCW signal for a more sample efficient, robust, and flexible framework. Proposed solutions leverage the entire signal and are able to handle multiple aliasing and can be used with any frequency modulation of choice. Furthermore, they are made to be robust against phase noise by assuming it is well correlated across short period of time. We also show an interesting finding that when bandwidth exceeds the sampling frequency, the ability to estimate parameters can heavily depend on the waveform. We present two cases, single reflection and multiple reflections where we solve the latter using a sparsity assumption on the number of reflections.