Impacts of control errors and measurement errors in airborne LiDAR on laser point cloud

The impacts of various control errors and measurement errors of airborne LiDAR on laser point cloud were studied. Firstly, the principle of the Palmer-scan airborne LiDAR was analyzed. Then the transformation formulas, from the control errors and measurement errors of various parameters, such as attitude angles, flight trajectory and scan angle in airborne LiDAR system, to the three-dimensional (3D) coordinate errors of the point cloud, were derived. Finally, by numerical simulation, two terrain models (planar and hemisphere terrains) were established, and the impacts of the control errors and measurement errors of flight trajectory and attitude angles on the laser point cloud were analyzed. Results show that the control errors mainly cause the distribution region shifting and the point density decreasing of the laser point cloud, while the measurement errors mainly result in the 3D coordinate accuracy decreasing of the laser point cloud. The combining impact of the control errors and measurement errors results in the distortion increasing of the reconstructed 3D surface models relative to the surveyed terrain.