Airborne Laser Swath Mapping: Interpreting Artifacts in the Processed Data Provide Important Information about the Quality of the Observations

摘要

Airborne Laser Swath Mapping (ALSM) is technologically complex and the observations are subject to many sources of error. Uncorrected systematic errors may make it difficult for end users to obtain realistic estimates of the accuracy of such products as digital elevation models (DEM) and contour maps, derived from the original observations. However, some of the more common and largest sources of error leave "signatures" or "artifacts" in the processed data which make them possible to detect even in derived products. University of Florida (UF) researchers recently evaluated ALSM observations collected by a commercial company in Alachua County, Florida, finding artifacts caused by trajectory errors, range walk, and sub-threshold signal levels.