Kristian L. Damkjer Harris Corporation

12H

Over the past several years, Harris has collected and produced LiDAR point cloud data for numerous customers in the commercial market space using sensors based on Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode (GmAPD) detector arrays.  Born from the strenuous demands of military-driven mapping and surveillance applications, LiDAR sensors based on GmAPD arrays are designed to collect higher density point clouds at much faster rates and from higher altitudes than traditional linear-mode systems.  Because GmAPD systems allow only a single measurement per detector per flash, however, there is some confusion in the commercial community about how this technology performs in the presence of multiple vertical layers, for example in areas with foliage or power line infrastructure.

In this presentation, we provide a detailed description of how LiDAR point clouds are produced when using GmAPD sensors in complex real-world environments and how that process drives collection tuning.  We also provide a comparison of these capabilities with existing linear-mode systems and discuss the pros and cons of using each for various customer applications.

10:45 Collecting and Producing Lidar Point Clouds from Geiger-Mode Systems in Real-World Environments, Kristian L. Damkjer