POLITECNICO DI TORINO

DIATI

LiDAR (Laser Scanning)

Aerial platform
Part 3

MARCO PIRAS
GEOMATICS: 01RVUMX
 Aerial LiDAR
Principles

system: airplane, helicopter, drone

GPS defines the position (XYZ)
Inertial platform(IMU) estimates the
orientations (omega, phi, k)
Laser source
For each ground point, the coordinates
(3D) are estimated
 Aerial LiDAR
Principles

GPS
INS

LASER

Point i

RS
 Aerial LiDAR
Coordinates system
RG: local
level frame Rs: mirror
Rins: rotation
navigation
system

dz
RW: earth- -r
fixed frame dy

dx body frame

z 0

 xt   X 0   d x   0 
y   Y   R R R    0 
y 0
 t  0  W G INS d
 y   R m R s  
x  zt   Z 0   d z   - r  
0

O
 Aerial LiDAR
Multi-pulses (echo) registration

At the moment of impact with the surface the laser pulse will then be characterized by
an impact region and not by a single point.
When the impact region of the laser pulse meets an obstacle (leaves, suspended
lines), this is reflected at different times.
The backward signals are therefore more than one, which gives rise to the possibility or
the need to measure a specific one or a series.
 Aerial LiDAR
Multi-pulses (echo) registration

The greater part of the laser system

are able to collect only «one pulse»,
usually the first pulse. In some case,
the last pulse is stored.

In other cases, the system is able to

acquire up to 4 different pulses.

In order to distinguish the different

pulses, it is necessary to have a
discontinuity between the pulse (at
least 1 m, it is related to the
wavelength).
 Aerial LiDAR
Multi-pulses (echo) registration
 Aerial LiDAR
Wave form analysis
New laser generations are able to
measure the complete wave form
 Aerial LiDAR
Errors
Systematic errors

Calibration errors
Time errors
Angular resolution errors
Inertial platform errors

Max freq.

Precision (m).
Random errors

GNSS system
Distance measurements
Angular resolution errors

Relative height
 Aerial LiDAR
Some examples

Precision: dm
Resolution: it depends on the
height of flight, but up to 8-
10 points/m2)

Riegl LMS-Q560

Geometrical and radiometric

measurements;
 Aerial LiDAR
some examples

Leica ALS 50 II
TopoSys Falcon III
Optech ALTM 3100
Aerial LiDAR
Some examples
 Aerial LiDAR
Calibration of the aerial system

A calibration field is required. It is important to verify the correct

«geometry definition» between the sensors
 Aerial LiDAR
Design of the flight
The flights have to be designed,
considering:
1. Number of pulses
2. FOV of the laser
3. Number of points (density)
4. Terrain morphology

In order to avoid some «gap» in the point clouds, it is

important to have at least the 20% of overlapping
between trasverse strips, but we have to considering the
slope of the terrain.
It is a good practice, every 10 km, a trasverse acquisition
has to be realized. In particular, it is fundamental to
acquire a trasverse line at the begin and at the end of the
lines.
 Aerial LiDAR
Registration of the radiometric intensity

Radiometric
intensity of the
signal. This value
depends on the
surface.

Snow 80-90%
Dry sand  57%
Asphalt  17%
 Aerial LiDAR
Production steps
Data acquisition and
image

alignment

georeferencing

filtering

segmentation
Surface generation
modelling

Digital image processing

Generation of final
products
 Aerial LiDAR
Georeferencing and alignment
IMU and GNSS

alignment
Statistical approach, to minimize the residuals.
 LiDAR: Aerial solution
Filtering

It is important to remove the points which are not belong to the terrain (DTM)

(DSM)

(DTM)
 LiDAR: Aerial solution
Self-tuning Standard Deviation Filtering
(Lingua, Marenchino, 2009)

med i  di , j  dj - n i  di , j  dj  Qk  med i  di , j  dj  n i  di , j  dj
 LiDAR: Aerial solution
classification
Variance criteria
(Manzino, Roggero)

P(xi, yi, zi)

P(xi, yi, zi)

ax+by+cz=d
 LiDAR: Aerial solution
Classification

terrain Irregul. terrain vegetation building Outlier total

points[n.°] 414.858 34.808 226.092 270.976 12988 959.722
Error [%] 0,43 3,30 0,12 12,25 0,00 3,79
 LiDAR: Aerial solution
Segmentation
Analytical procedure that
combines points with common
characteristics defining regions
and objects

Region Growing by means cluster analisys

Final products
Dense models