Procedure and Accuracy Assessment Results of Livox MID-360 Scanners

Abstract. Scanning systems, both stationary and mobile, increasingly employ low-cost laser scanners that offer distance measurement accuracy on the order of 1–2 cm with ranges up to several tens of meters. This paper presents a validated, replicable procedure for assessing the accuracy of scanning heads. Results are presented for 35 Livox MID-360 heads. 
Measurements were carried out in the laboratory of the Faculty of Environmental Engineering and Geodesy at the University of Agriculture in Krakow. Data acquisition included six angular poses per head; for each pose, three sets of 2 million points were combined (6 million in total). The evaluation included registration to a TLS reference point cloud (Leica P40), Cloud-to-Cloud comparison with decomposition into X/Y/Z components, assignment of a local coordinate system and rasterization with a 0.25 m grid, followed by analysis of the dependence of errors on distance. 
The results confirm that measurement errors fall within the manufacturer-declared range for all examined units, indicating the suitability of the heads for centimeter-precision tasks. At the same time, a small step-like change in error in the Z direction was observed at a distance of approximately 10–12 m from the scanner, as well as minor direction-dependent differences in the distributions in the X and Y directions. The proposed procedure provides practical recommendations for quality control, and the obtained results may serve as a reference point for calibration and deployment of low-cost scanners in 3D scanning systems.