HR: 0800h
AN: G21C-1289    [Abstracts]
TI: Airborne 3D Imaging Lidar for Contiguous Decimeter Resolution Terrain Mapping and Shallow Water Bathymetry
AU: Degnan, J J
EM: John.Degnan@sigmaspace.com
AF: Sigma Space Corporation, 4801 Forbes Blvd., Lanham, MD 20706 United States
AU: * Wells, D N
EM: David.Wells@sigmaspace.com
AF: Sigma Space Corporation, 4801 Forbes Blvd., Lanham, MD 20706 United States
AU: Huet, H
EM: Hubert.Huet@sigmaspace.com
AF: Sigma Space Corporation, 4801 Forbes Blvd., Lanham, MD 20706 United States
AU: Chauvet, N
EM: Nicolas.Chauvet@sigmaspace.com
AF: Sigma Space Corporation, 4801 Forbes Blvd., Lanham, MD 20706 United States
AU: Lawrence, D W
EM: David.Lawrence@sigmaspace.com
AF: Sigma Space Corporation, 4801 Forbes Blvd., Lanham, MD 20706 United States
AU: Mitchell, S E
EM: Steven.Mitchell@sigmaspace.com
AF: Sigma Space Corporation, 4801 Forbes Blvd., Lanham, MD 20706 United States
AU: Eklund, W D
EM: Wayne.Eklund@sigmaspace.com
AF: Sigma Space Corporation, 4801 Forbes Blvd., Lanham, MD 20706 United States
AB: A 3D imaging lidar system, developed for the University of Florida at Gainesville and operating at the water transmissive wavelength of 532 nm, is designed to contiguously map underlying terrain and/or perform shallow water bathymetry on a single overflight from an altitude of 600 m with a swath width of 225 m and a horizontal spatial resolution of 20 cm. Each 600 psec pulse from a frequency-doubled, low power (~3 microjoules @ 8 kHz = 24 mW), passively Q-switched Nd:YAG microchip laser is passed through a holographic element which projects a 10x10 array of spots onto a 2m x 2m target area. The individual ground spots are then imaged onto individual anodes within a 10x10 segmented anode photomultiplier. The latter is followed by a 100 channel multistop ranging receiver with a range resolution of about 4 cm. The multistop feature permits single photon detection in daylight with wide range gates as well as multiple single photon returns per pixel per laser fire from volumetric scatterers such as tree canopies or turbid water columns. The individual single pulse 3D images are contiguously mosaiced together through the combined action of the platform velocity and a counter-rotating dual wedge optical scanner whose rotations are synchronized to the laser pulse train. The paper provides an overview of the lidar opto-mechanical design, the synchronized dual wedge scanner and servo controller, and the experimental results obtained to date.
DE: 1294 Instruments and techniques
DE: 1640 Remote sensing (1855)
SC: Geodesy [G]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005