UAV LIDAR DATA PROCESSING: INFLUENCE OF FLIGHT HEIGHT ON GEOMETRIC ACCURACY, RADIOMETRIC INFORMATION AND PARAMETER SETTING IN DTM PRODUCTION

Abstract. This article presents the results of studies related to the impact of flight altitude of UAV equipped with lidar data on geometric and radiometric information. Experiments were conducted in two test areas by performing UAV test flight missions at different UAV Laser Scanner (ULS) altitudes. The results were compared to other parameters describing the point clouds in order to answer the questions related to their genesis and evaluation of a product from such high-resolution datasets. The accuracy of the elevation models was assessed on the basis of control points measured with GNSS RTK and Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS). Accuracy was assessed by statistical parameters and differential digital elevation models. The second issue raised in this work is the study of the decrease in radiometric value with an increase in platform elevation. The results of this work clearly indicate the very low impact of platform altitude on DTM vertical error. In presented works the suggestion about DTM resolution and interpolation method are provided. Moreover, the influence of flight height on the reflectance and intensity is notable, however, its impact is related more with the details and resolution of the raster than radiometric values considering the possibility of radiometric calibration of the intensity.