LiDAR

LiDAR, (Light Detection and Ranging) is a remote sensing technology that measures distances to objects and surfaces using laser pulses. It is widely used for creating highly accurate 3D representations of terrain, objects, and environments. LiDAR systems emit laser pulses towards the target area from a sensor mounted on an aircraft, drone, or terrestrial platform. When a laser pulse hits an object or surface, it reflects back towards the LiDAR sensor and the distance is calculated based on return interval.

The collected LiDAR points are processed to create a dense point cloud dataset, where each point represents a precise 3D coordinate. Point clouds generated by LiDAR capture detailed information about the shape, elevation, and spatial characteristics of the surveyed area. Laser pulses are able to penetrate through vegetation, and allows to highly accurate Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) or modeling the vertical structure of objects above the ground such as creating a crown height model for forestry applications.

SuavAir’s use of UAV based LiDAR scanning drastically reduces the cost of conducting a LiDAR scan compared to traditional aircraft based approaches. It is cost effective to survey small to medium sized areas and can easily repeatable to perform change detection.