What is LiDAR ?

LiDAR is a relatively new active remote sensing technology using a laser scanner, Global Positioning System (GPS), and inertial navigation. In the same way that SONAR using sound waves and reflection to detect targets and determine distance (think of the ping in the submarine scene from your favourite war movie), LiDAR uses laser pulses with their timed reflectance to determine the target distance. With airborne LiDAR, the target is what lays under the aircraft – be it power lines, vegetation, or the ground.

LiDAR is the acronym for
Light Detection And Ranging

overview of a LiDAR survey

What is LiDAR v3

How Does A LiDAR Survey Work ?

The laser scanner on the aircraft scans along its flight path, sending pulses at a rate up to 2000khz, with multiple target reflections per pulse.

While scanning, the GPS (GNSS receiver) on the aircraft is in constant communication the GPS satellite constellation, always knowing where it is in 3D space.

During flight, both the subtle and not so subtle aircraft movements are recorded, allowing post processing to correct these deviations ensuring the laser scan lines are calibrated and corrected for maximum precision and accuracy.

This makes LiDAR ideal for surveys in difficult or complex terrain with little access, heavily forested areas, or even regions where it is not safe for a ground survey crew to operate in. In addition, many LiDAR survey vendors offer a co-mounted high resolution digital camera. This provides contemporaneous geo-referenced imagery of your project area along with LiDAR data.