Retrieval of higher order statistical moments from full-waveform LiDAR data for tree species classification

摘要

Tree inventories, inter alia, need information on the tree species. Previous studies aimed at distinguishing tree species based on three dimensional tree structure metrics derived from airborne laser scanning (ALS) point clouds or based on features from full-waveform (FW) laser scanning data provided by today's sensors. Classifications based on FW features mainly use echo amplitude, pulse energy (hereafter referred to as energy) and width, which are typically retrieved by waveform decomposition, often performed using the symmetric Gaussian distribution function.