Errors and accuracy estimates of laser data acquired by various laser scanning systems for topographic applications

The Survey Department of Rijkswaterstaat in The Netherlands makes extensive use of laser scanning for topographic measurements. An inventory of sources of errors indicates that errors may vary from 5 to 200 cm. The experience shows that errors related to the laser instrument, GPS and WS may frequently occur, resulting in local distortions, and planimetric and height shifts. Moreover, the results indicate that for flat terrain, having corrected for gross errors, an offset of less than 10 cm can often be obtained and standard deviations are generally well within 15 cm. For hilly and flat terrain densely covered by vegetation, accuracy estimates do not generally fulfil those required by Rijkswaterstaat. However, the use of an adequate strategy for data collection and processing will, to a great extent, improve the accuracy and fidelity of the results. Thus, research should be devoted to the design of appropriate strategies for data collection and processing. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.