COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT LIDAR SYSTEM CALIBRATION TECHNIQUES

Abstract. With light detection and ranging (LiDAR) now being a crucial tool for engineering products and on the fly spatial analysis, it is necessary for the user community to have standardized calibration methods. The three methods in this study were developed and proven by the Digital Photogrammetry Research Group (DPRG) for airborne LiDAR systems and are as follows; Simplified, Quasi-Rigorous, and Rigorous. In lieu of using expensive control surfaces for calibration, these methods compare overlapping LiDAR strips to estimate the systematic errors. These systematic errors are quantified by these methods and include the lever arm biases, boresight biases, range bias and scan angle scale bias. These three methods comprehensively represent all of the possible flight configurations and data availability and this paper will test the limits of the method with the most assumptions, the simplified calibration, by using data that violates the assumptions it’s math model is based on and compares the results to the quasi-rigorous and rigorous techniques. The overarching goal is to provide a LiDAR system calibration that does not require raw measurements which can be carried out with minimal control and flight lines to reduce costs. This testing is unique because the terrain used for calibration does not contain gable roofs, all other LiDAR system calibration testing and development has been done with terrain containing features with high geometric integrity such as gable roofs.