UAV-LiDAR

LiDAR is an active remote sensing technique that uses laser pulses emitted by a scanner to measure earth surface and canopy, which are mapped into 3D point clouds. The laser pulses can penetrate vegetation canopies allowing the underlying terrain elevation to be accurately modelled. Therefore, it is a powerful tool for recognizing and investigating archaeological heritage in wooded areas, usually well preserved due to the vegetation cover which protects the sites from erosion and from possible damage of mechanical ploughing. Currently, a LiDAR survey could be carried out by two different types of ALS sensor systems (fig. 1) : (i) conventional scanners or discrete echo scanners and (ii) full-waveform (FW) scanners. The first, generally, delivers only the first and last echo, thus losing many other reflections. The second is able to detect the entire echo waveform for each emitted laser beam, thus offering improved capabilities especially in areas with complex morphology and/or dense vegetation cover. The scanner can be installed on Helicopters, Airplanes, drones. The Lidar system herein described is a very lightweight and compact wave form laser scanner, mounted on an esacopter drone (DJI Matrice 600pro).