ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences
Download
Publications Copernicus
Download
Citation
Articles | Volume III-1
https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-annals-III-1-159-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-annals-III-1-159-2016
02 Jun 2016
 | 02 Jun 2016

MONITORING AIRCRAFT MOTION AT AIRPORTS BY LIDAR

C. Toth, G. Jozkow, Z. Koppanyi, S. Young, and D. Grejner-Brzezinska

Keywords: LiDAR, object detection, pose estimation, motion estimation, airport safety

Abstract. Improving sensor performance, combined with better affordability, provides better object space observability, resulting in new applications. Remote sensing systems are primarily concerned with acquiring data of the static components of our environment, such as the topographic surface of the earth, transportation infrastructure, city models, etc. Observing the dynamic component of the object space is still rather rare in the geospatial application field; vehicle extraction and traffic flow monitoring are a few examples of using remote sensing to detect and model moving objects. Deploying a network of inexpensive LiDAR sensors along taxiways and runways can provide both geometrically and temporally rich geospatial data that aircraft body can be extracted from the point cloud, and then, based on consecutive point clouds motion parameters can be estimated. Acquiring accurate aircraft trajectory data is essential to improve aviation safety at airports. This paper reports about the initial experiences obtained by using a network of four Velodyne VLP- 16 sensors to acquire data along a runway segment.