The Geolocation Accuracy of Lidar Footprint

Abstract

This paper describes the geometric geolocation accuracy of LiDAR footprint, utilizing an aircraft configuration that supports a sensor designed to scan the surface of the Earth, a DGPS and INS/IMU system. It is presented a review of LiDAR’s footprints accuracy as a relationship between the input parameters, which include errors of the orbital state, attitude information of the aircraft and the look vector errors of the active sensor (LiDAR scanner), that give us the coordinates of the point of intersection of the line of sight scanning system and the Earth's surface as a function of: terrestrial ellipsoid surface, aircraft position, aircraft velocity, aircraft attitude (spatial situation) and the orientation of the LiDAR scanner. Using the derived error formulas, based on the accuracy of the navigation solution, the boresight misalignment angles, the ranging and scan angle accuracy, and laser beam divergence, the achievable point positioning accuracy can be computed for any given LiDAR system which operates at different flying heights between 70 m - 6,000 m.