Peter Rieger
Manager ALS Business Division
RIEGL Laser Measurement Systems GmbH
Austria

Biography
Peter Rieger is responsible manager for airborne laser scanning products at RIEGL Laser Measurement Systems GmbH located in Horn, Austria. He received a MSc degree in telecommunications engineering from the Vienna University of Technology in 2002. His research interests cover ranging techniques in scanning LiDAR, with emphasis on methods for resolving range ambiguities, full waveform analysis, and inertial navigation/GNSS.

Abstract
UAV-based Laser Scanning for Corridor Mapping and Industrial Inspection

Co-Authors:
Martin Pfennigbauer, Director, Research & IP, RIEGL Laser Measurement Systems GmbH
Ursula Riegl, Unmanned Aviations Specialist, RIEGL Laser Measurement Systems GmbH

While the enormous potential of civil UAV use has become evident through a multitude of application propositions during the last years, the challenging requirements profile for both aircraft and onboard sensor units has emerged with clarity now that first UAV service businesses have started their activity. We present the first remotely piloted airborne LiDAR complete solution out of the hands of a single vendor which has been conceived in order to meet these specific demands concerning both the aircraft and the sensors, namely utmost reliability and precision, furthermore versatility, lightweight and endurance. The core sensor system consists of the RIEGL VUX-1, a state-of-the art survey-grade laser scanner specifically designed for UAV and light aircraft integration, a GPS receiver, an IMU sensor and calibrated high-resolution cameras. The sensor system is perfectly integrated into a high-performance X-8 array octocopter allowing smooth data acquisition and on-board data storage. In order to exemplify and the capability of the system, and to point out the differences against conventional airborne or ground-based scanning methods regarding workflow, feasibility, efficiency and quality, we discuss two practical cases, taken from typical fields of application: powerline mapping and industrial inspection. While powerline mapping is a typical situations of corridor mapping, a routine flight based on a once established linear flight plan, the latter is an example for surveillance of complex structures. In both cases, specific problems occur upon data acquisition: the capability of ground-based or high-altitude airborne survey to detect fine features such as powerlines is limited, yet the low level flight of the unmanned aircraft allows to fully exploit the capacity of the laser scanner: thanks to the large field of view and multiple target capability it is possible to carry out reliable monitoring, to penetrate vegetation and to extract fine features of interest almost automatically out of a remarkably dense point cloud. The challenges in inspecting industrial installations are their high degree of complexity and obstructed accessibility. Datasets acquired acquired for these demanding applications are discussed.