Abstract

The Australian laser airborne depth sounder WRELADS II was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of using airborne laser techniques for hydrographic survey. This paper describes the system, the experimental program used for its evaluation, and some results obtained by it. Development of the system over a five-year period involved 550 h of airborne evaluation, including the collection of data during 22 sorties over a calibrated test range. Analysis of these data has permitted development of an empirical depth bias model. It is shown that the system meets the requirements of the Royal Australian Navy Hydrographic Service for depth accuracy and provides an adequate data yield.

© 1986 Optical Society of America

Modeling depth bias in an airborne laser hydrographic system

Brian Billard, Ralph H. Abbot, and Michael F. Penny
Appl. Opt. 25(13) 2089-2098 (1986)

Rogue point elimination in airborne laser hydrography

Brian Billard
Appl. Opt. 25(13) 2074-2079 (1986)

Remote sensing of scattering coefficient for airborne laser hydrography

Brian Billard
Appl. Opt. 25(13) 2099-2108 (1986)

Estimation of a mean sea surface reference in the wrelads airborne depth sounder

Brian Billard
Appl. Opt. 25(13) 2067-2073 (1986)

Sea surface and depth detection in the WRELADS airborne depth sounder

Brian Billard and Peter J. Wilsen
Appl. Opt. 25(13) 2059-2066 (1986)