Motion error analysis of the 3D coordinates of airborne lidar for typical terrains

Abstract

A motion error model of 3D coordinates is established and the impact on coordinate errors caused by the non-ideal movement of the airborne platform is analyzed. The simulation results of the model show that when the lidar system operates at high altitude, the influence on the positioning errors derived from laser point cloud spacing is small. For the model the positioning errors obey simple harmonic vibration whose amplitude envelope gradually reduces with the increase of the vibration frequency. When the vibration period number is larger than 50, the coordinate errors are almost uncorrelated with time. The elevation error is less than the plane error and in the plane the error in the scanning direction is less than the error in the flight direction. Through the analysis of flight test data, the conclusion is verified.

Measuring Surface Deformation of Asphalt Pavement via Airborne LiDAR: A Pilot Study

“…The laser footprint positioning model of the airborne LiDAR was first established as shown in Figure 10 [23,24]. Point G (XG, YG, ZG) represents the LiDAR sensor and point P (XP, YP, ZP) represents the laser footprint.…”

“…The coordinates obtained from the above steps are the laser foot point coordinates under ideal conditions, without considering the amplification effect of attitude angle error, laser ranging error, scanning angle error, instantaneous scanning angle size, UAV vibration, and UAV flight altitude [24], etc. The laser footprint positioning model is then implemented to obtain the error band of each laser beam to simulate the actual laser measurement condition.…”