Simulation study of new generation of airborne scannerless LiDAR system

This paper presents a new generation of scannerless laser radar measurement system, called GLidar in our project. This system does not require the scanning device; as a result, the dimension of the entire measuring system is small, lightweight, and reliability. The proposed scannerless LiDAR system is especially designated for a small civil UAV platform under a low altitude operation. This paper presents the principle of the array LiDAR imaging, mathematical models of calculating the 3-D coordinates of the laser radar footprints with respect to a mapping coordinate system. Some simulated results are presented on the basis of a test field located in Virginia Wytheville, USA. The simulated results demonstrated that the designated new generation of array LiDAR can achieve 0.06-0.10 m in flat area, 0.31-0.62 m in the edge of house, and 1.23-1.78 m in the forested area compared to an existing DSM data.