ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 54 1999.

6467

Airborne laser scanningpresent status and future expectations

Friedrich Ackermann
) Pfeilstrasse 22, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany

Keywords: airborne laser scanning; digital terrain model; continuous wave laser

1. Present performance and application Airborne laser scanning represents a new and independent technology for the highly automated generation of digital terrain models DTM. and surface models. Its development goes back to the 1970s and 1980s, with an early NASA system and other attempts in USA and Canada. Then, the GPS solution of the critical positioning problem made high accuracy performance feasible. Thorough investigations at Stuttgart University from 19881993 with a laser profiler proved the high geometric accuracy potential, especially for DTM generation, and clarified the essential system parameters. The scene was set for the development of genuine scanning systems, which then followed in quick sequence. The method has successfully established itself within a few years, and quickly spread into various practical applications. In this issue of the ISPRS journal, a number of technical and application papers display the status and performance of airborne laser scanning. Here, in this paper, some additional considerations are submitted on the potential further development and application of the method. Naturally, these will be personal views.
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The development of airborne laser scanning has been technology driven. It became initially possible by pulse lasers operating in the near infrared, which gave clearly recordable return signals after diffusion and reflection on the ground. The travel times are recorded to nearly 10y1 0 s and converted to distance. Recently, also continuous wave CW. lasers are used, which obtain range by phase measurements. Precise kinematic positioning of the platform by differential GPS and inertial attitude determination by IMU now provide the accurate reference to an external co-ordinate system. Laser scanning systems furnish geometric results in terms of distance, position, attitude, and coordinates. For each shot, the spatial vector from the laser platform to the point of reflection is established, thus providing the XYZ co-ordinates of the footprint. The overall vertical system accuracy is usually in the dm order. Most systems presently operate at flying heights of up to about 1000 m above ground. The scan angle is generally - "308, in most cases - "208. Some laser scanning systems provide, in addition to range, information on the intensity of the recorded signal or information range, and in some cases, also amplitude. for multiple echoes within one pulse see paper by A. Wehr and U. Lohr in this issue..

0924-2716r99r$ - see front matter q 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 2 4 - 2 7 1 6 9 9 . 0 0 0 0 9 - X

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The high measuring rate of laser scanning is of particular importance. Present measuring rates lie between 2 kHz and 25 kHz, one system reaches 80 kHz. Accordingly, from 1000 m flying height, the sampling densities on the ground range from about 1 point per 20 m2 up to 20 points per m2 . The actual sampling density depends on the system and on the balance between flying speed, pulse rate, scan angle, and flying height. The geometric sampling pattern on the ground is pre-determined by the system design. But it is not rigidly fixed, as it also depends on the irregular flying path, and on the 3-D structure of the terrain. Laser scanning is not capable of any direct pointing to particular objects or object features. The resulting co-ordinates refer to the footprints of the laser scan as they happen. In that sense, it is a blind system, but particularly distinguished by high accuracy, high sampling densities, and a high degree of automation. The laser footprints directly measure the visible ground surface or objects on it. However, objects without a well-defined surface, like trees or cornfields, may produce several separately recordable reflections of one incident pulse. Hence, a laser pulse can penetrate partly into and possibly through the vegetation cover of the terrain. This potential of passing through forest canopies was the original motivation to study laser systems for the purpose of generating DTMs in forest areas at our laser working group at the University of Stuttgart. It was found that with near vertical incident angles of the laser system, penetration rates to the ground, in European type coniferous and deciduous forests, of 2040% can be expected, and up to nearly 70% in deciduous forests in winter time. The multiple signal returns from forests or other vegetation covers do not represent any particular surface. The required ground surface must be derived by mathematical modelling, on the basis of data analysis and data redundancy. Still, some types of vegetation present difficulties. In particular, the penetration capability of laser signals through dense tropical rain forest remains questionable, although successful attempts have been reported. Laser pulses may also be reflected from objects, which are below the resolution as suggested by the footprint diameter. Examples are electric power lines

or steel structures, which can be captured, indeed, by airborne laser scanning. The described technical features of airborne laser scanning outline the present fields of application. The primary application concerns the generation of high quality topographic DTMs, described by mostly regular grid patterns. It is the unique advantage of airborne laser scanning that it is equally applicable to open terrain as well as to areas which are partly or completely covered by forest or other vegetation. Naturally, the interactive editing efforts in the latter case are higher. Another important application of laser scanning also concerns the generation of DTMs in coastal areas or wetlands which are difficult to be obtained by other methods. It is a general feature of new technologies that their technical potential soon opens up new applications. Airborne laser scanning is presently in that process, spreading into other fields beyond the DTM generation. Multiple returns from vegetation covers imply, for instance, that information about the vegetation itself can be obtained. Also, the survey of electric power lines together with the under-growing vegetation has become a highly interesting special application, the demand for which is growing fast. A particularly interesting new application of airborne laser scanning concerns the automatic capture of buildings in built-up areas for city modelling purposes. Buildings and constructions, masking the ground surface, were originally considered as obstructions to be removed in the DTM generation. In the meantime, the recognition and capture of buildings has become an important independent task. In built-up areas, many laser points lie on the superstructure of buildings, in particular, on flat or gabled roofs. With high sampling densities, of e.g., several points per square meter, the vertical geometric distribution of the raw laser data allows the delineation of buildings in very close approximation, i.e., the automatic detection and geometric capture of buildings. There are other cases where detailed terrain features and structures are discernible and can be derived from the geometric information alone which is provided by laser scanning of high sampling density. For instance, breaklines of the terrain can indirectly be extracted to some extent. Other examples are dunes, hedges, walls, ditches, dams etc., which can be delineated from laser points, especially in flat

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F. Ackermannr ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing 54 (1999) 6467

terrain. Such applications were originally not anticipated but simply follow from the technical performance, which airborne laser scanning has reached.

2. Some comparison aspects to photogrammetry The above review has shown that airborne laser scanning is a new, versatile, and to a high degree, automatic method for obtaining terrain information. Data processing and object modelling provide information which is more than just geometric surface description. This method is still expanding and has become a serious competitor to aerial photogrammetry, with regard to some applications. Airborne laser scanning is comparable in some ways to the photogrammetric method of automatic generation of DTMs by digital processing of image data. Both methods are highly automated, although photogrammetry still is to a lesser degree. Their results are geometric and can reach, in the application to high precision DTMs, similar accuracies. With either method, more or less extended areas can be covered although flying time per unit area is much shorter for photogrammetry.. On the other hand, there are highly essential differences between both methods. Laser scanning is an active system, applicable even at night. It provides ground points in a certain pattern which is primarily determined by the system design and only influenced to some extent by the geometry of the terrain surface and its cover. The photogrammetric points, measured automatically or interactively, may be arranged in a pre-fixed rigid pattern. But quite often, they are quite arbitrarily selected, depending on image texture and image features. In case of vegetation, they would lie on the canopy, while laser points can be on or within and below the vegetation cover. Whether the photogrammetric restriction to the visible canopy of vegetation is a disadvantage or not depends on the purpose of the intended terrain and surface model, respectively. Orthophoto rectification, for instance, usually asks for the vegetation surface. As far as buildings are concerned, both methods have, in a way, supplementary properties. The laser system provides high density of points, but it does not directly capture features like breaklines, roof

ridges or the like. On the other side, photogrammetry has image information about the objects which, in principle, allows capturing of breaklines or linear and spatial objects. Especially, all necessary information exists for the identification and extraction of buildings and other man-made constructions. However, there are still great problems with regard to the automatic measurement of buildings from image data.

3. Expected further developments Airborne laser scanning has had a fast and most successful development. Today, it is an established method with high technical and economic performance. Where does it stand now? Has it reached its culmination, or can further developments be expected? If we evaluate and extrapolate its present status, the trend becomes clearly evident that the application of airborne laser scanning will continue to expand, in combination with a further deployment of the technological potential. It can be safely anticipated that the present technical performance of laser scanning systems will be extended and used in more diversified applications. Pulse rates and resolution, in terms of size and spacing of footprints, may become more adaptive. Platforms on low-flying helicopters can provide refined ground information for special applications up to monitoring of local scenes. On the other hand, the absolute system accuracy may still be increased, and higher flying heights will provide larger area coverage. Such pending developments will mainly be application-motivated. We may also see refined electronic analysis of the return signals from which additional information about surface characteristics of the footprints on the ground can be derived. Another item will be the comparison between pulsed and CW lasers. It may also be mentioned that there is a potential competition with DTMs derived by interferometric SAR, although the latter still operates in a different accuracy and scale range. It can be anticipated that a certain consolidation and extension of the laser scanning method will take place in the near future, concerning data processing, in view of extended and also more specialised applications. This progress will concern intelligent filtering and thinning out of data. It will also imply more

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complete information extraction by more sophisticated object modelling, in particular, with regard to objects and features, which are not directly captured. Examples may be geomorphologic structures, landscape modelling, city models, change detection or integration and comparison with existing databases. With increasing and extended applications, new business opportunities will certainly emerge with the result that airborne laser scanning, in combination with other techniques, will constitute an indispensable, powerful, and highly economic method in the world of geographic information acquisition. Here, however, a critical remark may be appropriate. The user community hopes very much that, contrary to the present trend, in future, the system parameters and algorithms will be sufficiently disclosed to allow judgment of performance. In addition, standards should be established for ensuring operational reliability and quality. In view of more fundamental further developments of airborne laser scanning, we take a look at the present restrictions. There is the basic limitation set by the geometric nature and the sampling system of the method, with its blindness about the capture and identification of objects and object features. What is missing is additional image information. This limitation has not been too restrictive, so far, as it has partly been overcome by modelling assumptions in the data processing. But complex cases still have to be edited by interactive interpretation based on pre-knowledge or on any available object visualisation. Present laser scanning systems can provide image information taken by video cameras during the flight mission. But the video images are usually no integrated part of the laser data system i.e., no spatialrtemporal co-registration with laser data. or give only supplementary support for interactive editing and object modelling. Results and performance could certainly be enhanced, if image information would become an integral part of automated data processing. Hence, most likely, the laser scanning systems will become supplemented with digital cameras. It would mean the direct and possibly automatic

merging of geometric scan data with digital image data for the purpose of object recognition and object capture. City modelling is a promising primary example. The systematic combination of digital laser and image data will constitute an effective fusion with photogrammetry, from a methodical and technological point of view. It would resolve the present state of competition on a higher level of integration and mutual completion, resulting in highly versatile systems and extended application potential. A total fusion would certainly agree with the general trend towards universal multi-sensor and multi-data systems. A similar fusion can be expected by the combination of geometric laser scanning with multi-spectral imaging systems. In that way, the integration with photogrammetry would be extended to include remote sensing applications in a wide range. Equally conceivable is the combination with hyperspectral lidar systems. The concept of data fusion can be pushed very much further. A particularly interesting possibility is the recording of the intensity of the return signal. Unfortunately, such digital images are presently limited to monochromatic image data and imply some under- or over-sampling. Therefore, they are not yet fully comparable to digital photogrammetric images. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating aim to obtain in principle digital image data together with polar position data for each image element. It would be a complete revolution in photogrammetry if image data could directly be combined with spatial position data. The consequences could be as dramatic as what happened in surveying, when polar geometry replaced the century-old intersection methods of point determination. Summarising this brief outlook, it can be stated that airborne laser scanning will certainly continue to proceed technically and to expand its applications. The potential integration with imaging sensors is expected to put airborne data acquisition on a revolutionary new level of system performance with far reaching prospects.