MULTI-PASS APPROACH FOR MOBILE TERRESTRIAL LASER SCANNING

Abstract

Mobile Terrestrial Laser Scanning (MTLS) has been utilised for an increasing number of corridor surveys. Current MTLS surveys require that many targets be placed along the corridor to monitor the MTLS trajectory’s accuracy. These targets enable surveyors to directly evaluate the magnitude of GNSS errors at regular intervals and can also be used to adjust the trajectory to the survey control. However, this “Multi-Target” approach (MTA) is an onerous task that can significantly reduce efficiency. It also is inconvenient to the travelling public, as lanes are often blocked and traffic slowed to permit surveyors to work safely along the road corridor. This paper introduces a “Multi-Pass” approach (MPA), which minimises the number of targets required for monitoring the GNSS-controlled trajectory while still maintaining strict engineering accuracies. MPA uses the power of multiple, independent MTLS passes with different GNSS constellations to generate a “Control Polyline” from the point cloud for the corridor. The Control Polyline can be considered as a statistically valid survey measurement and be incorporated in a network adjustment to strengthen a control network by identifying outliers. Results from a test survey at the MTLS course maintained by the Oregon Department of Transportation illustrate the effectiveness of this approach.