A review of error analysis and calibration techniques for spherical coordinate 3D laser scanners: Focus on non-instrumental and non-geometric factors

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Both Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLSs) and Metrological Laser Radars (MLRs) are typical Spherical Coordinate Laser Scanners (SCLSs), which are used for various fields requiring surface 3D scanning. TLSs are popular in historical preservation and archiving, reverse engineering, surveying geographic modeling, and digital cities, etc. MLRs, on the other hand, are primarily applied in large-scale precision measurements in industrial manufacturing due to their high accuracy in scanned 3D points. The 3D point precision of both TLSs and MLRs is affected significantly by geometric errors inside instruments. While the geometric errors of SCLSs have been reviewed in some studies, a systematic review of external non-instrumental errors and internal non-geometric errors for TLSs and MLRs is still lacking. These error sources also affect the measurement accuracy of SCLSs. This paper aims to review the quantitative and qualitative analysis of external non-instrumental errors and internal non-geometric errors in TLSs and MLRs. The external non-instrumental errors are further classified into surface properties, scanning geometry, and working environment in this review. For internal non-geometric errors, current research primarily focuses on laser signal processing but lacks studies on error mechanisms and their impact on accuracy. Most existing studies address Time-of-Flight (ToF)-based TLSs, with limited attention given to MLRs. While external factors such as scan depth and surface reflectance are well-studied, environmental factors like temperature remain underexplored. Additionally, there is insufficient research on error compensation models for external factors. Future research on MLRs may focus on several aspects. These include analyzing external non-instrument error factors qualitatively and quantitatively, developing error compensation models, studying the impact of the working environment, and evaluating uncertainty using large-scale standard objects. This review may be beneficial for understanding the research development about the non-instrumental and non-geometric errors of SCLSs.