The YellowScan Surveyor:
5cm Accuracy Demonstrated
Pierre Chaponnière1 and Tristan Allouis2
1
Application Engineer, YellowScan
2
CTO, YellowScan
Introduction
YellowScan Surveyor, the very latest lightweight
UAV borne lidar system developed by YellowScan
was tested in real time conditions in the field. The
aim of this paper is to provide detailed information
on the level of accuracy that can be expected from
the system and the methodology adopted to assess
it.
The YellowScan Surveyor lidar system was flown on
a multicopter UAV platform over an area surveyed
by a professional certified surveyor. Detailed
comparisons between the two acquisition methods
are described in this paper.
YellowScan’s turnkey solutions
YellowScan, a French company has developed
lightweight professional grade lidar systems made
for UAVs since 2012. Prototyping phases evolved
into a viable commercial solution, the Mapper – a
fully integrated self-powered 2.1kg lidar system –
which started to be commercialized in 2014.
The 4 key principles behind each YellowScan system
are:
 Turnkey solution
 Ultra-light weight
 Independent from the aerial platform
 Simple to use
The YellowScan Surveyor: 5cm Accuracy Demonstrated
Additional 2 years of R&D development and
intensive component testing led to the conception of
the YellowScan Surveyor. This latest product
concentrates the best high-end components with the
highest accuracy/weight ratio available on the
market.
YellowScan Surveyor
The YellowScan Surveyor includes:
 The Applanix APX-15 UAV, a single board
GNSS-inertial solution chosen for its
unprecedented post-processed position and
orientation accuracy in its category
 The Velodyne VLP16 (also known as Puck), a
dual return laser scanner
 An onboard computer for continuous data
acquisition and processing
 Battery (up to 1.5 hours autonomy)
 Worldwide technical and operational support
YellowScan Surveyor key specifications:
 Laser scanner frequency: 300 kHz
 Weight: 1.6 kg, battery included
 Power consumption: 15W
 Autonomy: 1.5 hours typical
 Size (mm): 100x 150 x 140
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Study Site and Dataset
Study site description
The site selected for demonstrating the accuracy
level obtained with the YellowScan Surveyor is
YellowScan’s calibration site located in Assas, south
of France, directly north of Montpellier.
It consists of a 150x60m model aircraft training site
which exhibits gravelly airstrip and a 40m long row
of 9 concrete tables (1x2.3m) together with relatively
sparse low and high vegetation. The overall terrain is
mainly flat with occasional drainage ditches (20 to
50cm deep) surrounding the air field.
Overall 70 points were picked up and used for the
lidar point cloud validation. This included:
GCP - Survey methods to establish
control points
In order to establish the most accurate validation
points for comparison purpose to the lidar dataset
the following method was conducted:
 5 ground points were materialized at the edges
of the surveyed ground using wooden beacons
and surveyed using a double frequency
GPS/GLONASS Septentrio APS NR2 receiver
receiving RTK corrections via GSM connection
Figure 1. Ground surveying of the validation points
The YellowScan Surveyor: 5cm Accuracy Demonstrated
from a national private network of automated
GNSS base stations (TERIA). 5 readings were
taken per control points achieving a RMS3D of
5mm.
 From this 5 points baseline grid, a professional
certified surveyor installed a Leica total station
TCRP 1201+ and shot multiple points over the
surveyed field including table corners and table
top flat surfaces, airstrip gravelly surfaces and
natural grassy ground (see Figure 1). Polygonal
error to setup on the baseline grid was +/-10mm
and points were subsequently picked up at
+/- 2.5mm accuracy.
 36 materialized points suitable for checking
XYZ accuracy. Those points correspond to table
corner points (4 corners for each of the 9 tables)
 34 ground points for checking Z accuracy, in
details these can be classified as:
➢ 9 flat table surface points (picked up in the
middle of the table)
➢ 14 ground points picked up along the
gravelly airstrips of the site
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 ➢ 11 ground points located on natural grassy
Method
surfaces in the vicinity of the tables.

System set-up Flight plan parameters

The flight plan adopted for this survey included 8
The YellowScan Surveyor system was installed on
flight lines, 3 flown centered and along the table
the OnyxStar Fox-C8 multirotor UAV (Figure 2)
row, 3 flown perpendicular to the table row and the
which has a flight time of about 25min and a take-
last two flown as a cross-like figure with one axis
off weight of 9kg.
along the table row and the other perpendicular to
Lever arm measured and entered into the Applanix it. The flight line spacing was set at about 20 to 25m,
system via Ethernet cable communication. The fly height at 20m and speed at 3m/s (see Figure 3).
Surveyor was switched on 5min prior to the flight to
Overall flight time recorded for the mission was
optimize satellite acquisition and locking procedure.
5min and the total area covered summed up to
Prior to the flight the YellowScan team set up a about 0.5ha.
Septentrio GNSS base station APS-NR2 next to the
The flight also displays two bathtub geometries
surveyed field on a fixed control point (see GCP
flown at 8m/s at the start and at the end of the flight
description above). This was left reading 30min
which are recommended as the initialization
prior to the flight and stopped at the end of the
procedure for aligning the heading measurement of
mission. The logged data was saved and used
the Applanix GNSS-Inertial unit.
subsequently during the PPK process of the
trajectory.

Figure 2. YellowScan Surveyor onboard the OnyxStar Fox-C8

The YellowScan Surveyor: 5cm Accuracy Demonstrated 3/6

 Lidar Point cloud generation
As per standard post processing procedure when
operating the YellowScan Surveyor, the trajectory
was imported into POSPac together with the raw
data (RINEX file) gathered by the Septentrio base
station.
POSPac operates corrections to the trajectory and
enables the user to specify – whenever possible – the
exact coordinates the base station was setup at. In
our case we specify its coordinates picked by the
surveyor together with the offset of the tripod.
The corrected trajectory together with boresight
calibration angles of the Surveyor lidar unit were
finally used to generate the corresponding point
cloud (las format) using YellowScan’s processing
software.
The Velodyne Puck laser scanner records 360deg
field of view. For the purpose of this document, a
30deg corridor along each flight line was kept in the
point cloud while the rest of the points were
classified as overlap and thus discarded for the
accuracy estimation.
Figure 3. Flight plan trajectory
The YellowScan Surveyor: 5cm Accuracy Demonstrated
Automated shape detection method for
XYZ accuracy estimation
In order to exclude human / subjective intervention
in materializing the table corners within the lidar
point cloud used to check XYZ accuracy, an
automated approach was favored.
Using Terrasolid software (TerraScan,
TerraModeler), lidar points corresponding to the
tables were classified as a specific ‘table’ class and
used as an input class within the automated
‘vectorize building’ function (Roof class ‘table’,
maximum gap of 1m, planarity tolerance of 0.05m,
increase tolerance of 0.05m minimum area of 1m²,
minimum detail of 0.5m² and max roof slope of
5deg). Corners of the produced shape were
digitized, their XYZ coordinates extracted and
compared to the validation points.
Accuracy estimation method
To assess the difference between the lidar point
cloud and the validation points we used the Root
Mean Square Error – a well-known and vastly used
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 accuracy estimator. RMSE (1) takes the difference
between the observed and the estimated/forecast
value for each user-defined point, squares it, finds
the mean squared value and generates the square
root of that mean.
√
N
1 of 580Mb. These parameters led to a point density of
RMSE= N ⋅∑ ( f i −oi )2 (1)
i=1
Where :
N =number of forecast / observation pair
f = forecast
o=observation
Two types of validations were produced from this
survey:
 A Z-only validation which looks at the vertical
distance between the control point and a
triangulated surface generated directly from the
point cloud (Terrasolid parameters during the
output control point report being ‘maximum
triangle length to 20m, maximum slope to 20deg
and Z tolerance to 0.2m).
 A XYZ validation which looked at comparing
the 4 corners of each of the 9 tables using an
automated shape detection method described
before.
Figure 4. Resulting point cloud
The YellowScan Surveyor: 5cm Accuracy Demonstrated
Results
Point cloud parameters
The generated point cloud (Figure 4) for the 0.5ha
surveyed area totalizes 21M points for a disk space
about 6000points/m² with all flight lines combined
and translated into a measured density of
1600points/m² per flight line.
Z validation
The results obtained from the Z-validation process
are summarized in Table 1.
Considering all the points, the calculated RMSE is
2.1cm. The average error, also called absolute
accuracy or bias, is -1.3cm. The standard deviation,
also called precision or repeatability, is 1.6cm.
The type of material seems to affect the precision
level: as notionally expected, the smoother the
surface the higher the precision. The elevation of flat
cement slabs is identified and mapped with an
RMSE of 1.9cm, an accuracy of -1.6cm and a
precision of 1cm. Gravelly airstrip and natural
grassy terrain measurements present an accuracy of
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 -1.3cm and -1.2cm respectively, and precision of and introduce errors in the generation of the table
1.6cm and 2.2cm respectively. shape during the Terrasolid step.

XYZ validation
Conclusion
Table 2 summarizes the results (in m) of the
The YellowScan Surveyor used in parallel with an
comparison between the 36 table corner points
onsite GNSS base station reaches absolute accuracy
picked by ground total station and the 36 table
of -1.3cm in Z with a precision of 1.6cm. As
corner points automatically generated in Terrasolid
expected, the harder the surface is, the higher the
software.
precsion will be. In the study, cement slab surfaces
The average error (absolute accuracy) for X, Y and Z are positioned with an accuracy of -1.6cm and a
is 2.5cm, -3.3cm and -2.6cm respectively. The precision of 1cm.
standard deviation (precision or repeatability) for X,
Assessing XYZ accuracy is relatively more
Y and Z is 3.3cm, 3.8cm and 0.9cm respectively. The
demanding in terms of target material and
RMSE for X, Y and Z is 4.1cm, 5cm and 2.8cm
automatic shape generation technique in order to
respectively.
exclude subjective interaction. However, the study
The materialized corner edges of the tables have a shows an average error below 3.3cm and a precision
higher XY error than a Z error. This is mostly due to below 3.8cm.
the fact that edges tend to be noisier than surfaces

Table 1. Z validation

Table 2. XYZ validation

The YellowScan Surveyor: 5cm Accuracy Demonstrated 6/6