Evaluation of a New Lightweight UAV-Borne Topo-Bathymetric LiDAR for Shallow Water Bathymetry and Object Detection

Airborne LiDAR bathymetry (ALB) has proven to be an effective technology for shallow water mapping. To collect data with a high point density, a lightweight dual-wavelength LiDAR system mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was developed. This study presents and evaluates the system using the f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2022-02, Vol.22 (4), p.1379
Main Authors: Wang, Dandi, Xing, Shuai, He, Yan, Yu, Jiayong, Xu, Qing, Li, Pengcheng
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accuracy
Altitude
Analysis
Bathymeters
Bathymetry
coastal mapping
Cubes
Data acquisition
Echo sounding
full-waveform
Inertial navigation
Inertial navigation (Aeronautics)
Lasers
LiDAR
Lightweight
Mapping
object detection
Optical radar
Power supply
Remote sensing
Sensors
Shallow water
Surveys
Unmanned aerial vehicles
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Summary:Airborne LiDAR bathymetry (ALB) has proven to be an effective technology for shallow water mapping. To collect data with a high point density, a lightweight dual-wavelength LiDAR system mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was developed. This study presents and evaluates the system using the field data acquired from a flight test in Dazhou Island, China. In the precision and accuracy assessment, the local fitted planes extracted from the water surface points and the multibeam echosounder data are used as a reference for water surface and bottom measurements, respectively. For the bathymetric performance comparison, the study area is also measured with an ALB system installed on the manned aerial platform. The object detection capability of the system is examined with placed small cubes. Results show that the fitting precision of the water surface is 0.1227 m, and the absolute accuracy of the water bottom is 0.1268 m, both of which reach a decimeter level. Compared to the manned ALB system, the UAV-borne system provides higher resolution data with an average point density of 42 points/m and maximum detectable depth of 1.7-1.9 Secchi depths. In the point cloud of the water bottom, the existence of a 1-m target cube and the rough shape of a 2-m target cube are clearly observed at a depth of 12 m. The system shows great potential for flexible shallow water mapping and underwater object detection with promising results.
ISSN:1424-8220
1424-8220
DOI:10.3390/s22041379