Comparison of Coincident Terrestrial and Airborne Lidar Datasets with Respect to Detection of Ground Metrics and Topographic Change
Abstract
The Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research and National Science Foundation, in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), coordinated a controlled study of the use of pulse-based terrestrial lidar and phase-based airborne lidar systems to detect topographic changes and ground deformations in areas of buried pipelines subject to earthquakes and storm-induced landslides. Terrestrial and airborne lidar scans were performed at three LADWP sites in the Los Angeles region and their accuracy was evaluated using coincident high-precision total station survey measurements as a control. Horizontal accuracy was evaluated through the measurement of latitude Northing and longitude Easting (standardized to WGS84) residuals for distances separating well defined objects in the lidar scans, such as buildings and tanks. The bias and dispersion of lidar elevation measurements (standardized to NGVD88) was assessed at a flat un-vegetated site near the Los Angeles Reservoir before and after carefully measured trenching, and at a heavily vegetated and steeply sloping site at Power Plant 2 in San Francisquito Canyon. At the trench site, airborne lidar showed minimal bias and standard deviation (6-20 cm), whereas terrestrial lidar was nearly unbiased with very low dispersion (4-6 cm). Pre- and post-trench bias-adjusted normalized residuals are essentially randomly scattered, but elevation change was affected by relative bias within epochs. At the PP2 site, airborne lidar showed minimal elevation bias and a standard deviation of approximately 50 cm, whereas terrestrial lidar demonstrated large bias and dispersion (on order of meters) due the inability of side-looking ground-based lidar to penetrate heavy vegetation. With careful calibration, both terrestrial and airborne lidar are capable of measuring centimeter-to decimeter level ground displacements for large features in areas of minimal vegetation, whereas their application is more limited in areas of dense vegetation where line-of-site access to the ground is hampered.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUFM.G52A..08K
- Keywords:
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- 1200 GEODESY AND GRAVITY;
- 1294 Instruments and techniques;
- 1295 Integrations of techniques