TY - JOUR
T1 - Capabilities and performance of dual-wavelength Echidna® lidar
AU - Howe, Glenn A.
AU - Hewawasam, Kuravi
AU - Douglas, Ewan S.
AU - Martel, Jason
AU - Li, Zhan
AU - Strahler, Alan
AU - Schaaf, Crystal
AU - Cook, Timothy A.
AU - Chakrabarti, Supriya
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).
PY - 2015/1/1
Y1 - 2015/1/1
N2 - We describe the capabilities and performance of a terrestrial laser scanning instrument built for the purpose of recording and retrieving the three-dimensional structure of forest vegetation. The dual-wavelength Echidna® lidar characterizes the forest structure at an angular resolution as fine as 1 mrad while distinguishing between leaves and trunks by exploiting their differential reflectances at two wavelengths: 1 and 1.5 μm. The instrument records the full waveforms of return signals from 5 ns laser pulses at half-nanosecond time resolution; obtains ±117 deg zenith and 360 deg azimuth coverage out to a radius of more than 70 m; provides single-target range resolution of 4.8 and 2.3 cm for the 1 and 1.5 μm channels, respectively (1σ); and separates adjacent pulse returns in the same waveform at a distance of 52.0 and 63.8 cm apart for the 1 and 1.5 μm channels, respectively. The angular resolution is in part controlled by user-selectable divergence optics and is shown to be <2 mrad for the instrument's standard resolution mode, while the signal-to-noise ratio is 10 at 70 m range for targets with leaf-like reflectance for both channels. The portability and target differentiation make the instrument an ideal ground-based lidar suited for vegetation sensing.
AB - We describe the capabilities and performance of a terrestrial laser scanning instrument built for the purpose of recording and retrieving the three-dimensional structure of forest vegetation. The dual-wavelength Echidna® lidar characterizes the forest structure at an angular resolution as fine as 1 mrad while distinguishing between leaves and trunks by exploiting their differential reflectances at two wavelengths: 1 and 1.5 μm. The instrument records the full waveforms of return signals from 5 ns laser pulses at half-nanosecond time resolution; obtains ±117 deg zenith and 360 deg azimuth coverage out to a radius of more than 70 m; provides single-target range resolution of 4.8 and 2.3 cm for the 1 and 1.5 μm channels, respectively (1σ); and separates adjacent pulse returns in the same waveform at a distance of 52.0 and 63.8 cm apart for the 1 and 1.5 μm channels, respectively. The angular resolution is in part controlled by user-selectable divergence optics and is shown to be <2 mrad for the instrument's standard resolution mode, while the signal-to-noise ratio is 10 at 70 m range for targets with leaf-like reflectance for both channels. The portability and target differentiation make the instrument an ideal ground-based lidar suited for vegetation sensing.
KW - dual-wavelength laser scanner
KW - forest structure measurement
KW - lidar
KW - terrestrial laser scanner
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U2 - 10.1117/1.JRS.9.095979
DO - 10.1117/1.JRS.9.095979
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84952705847
SN - 1931-3195
VL - 9
JO - Journal of Applied Remote Sensing
JF - Journal of Applied Remote Sensing
IS - 1
M1 - 095979
ER -