Research on Airborne LiDAR Bathymetry and Data Processing Algorithms

Airborne LiDAR Bathymetry (ALB), as a new shallow sea terrain detection technology, has the characteristics of flexibility, high precision, high resolution, fast and efficient sounding and comprehensive coverage. It can seamlessly scan offshore waters and land. With the rapid development of laser technology, inertial navigation, GNSS positioning, computer, high-speed acquisition card and other technologies, the performance and index of airborne laser sounding system are also constantly improving, and gradually developing towards low cost, lightweight and miniaturization. Airborne Lidar sounding has shown great potential in shallow sea topography survey and coastal mapping, and has important practical value in underwater reconnaissance, target detection and identification, search and rescue, ocean exploitation and utilization, and has a broad application prospect. In this paper, we introduce the background of bathymetry LiDAR and discusses its bathymetric principle based on the unmanned aerial single wavelength ALB system developed by Shandong University of Science and Technology. Based on the optical structure, hardware characteristics, and underwater laser propagation characteristics of the developed LiDAR bathymetry system, research was conducted on how to improve the accuracy of nearshore water depth measurement and efficient full waveform data processing and extraction methods.