Multispectral airborne laser scanning - a new trend in the development of LiDAR technology

Airborne laser scanning (ALS) is the one of the most accurate remote sensing techniques for data acquisition where the terrain and its coverage is concerned. Modern scanners have been able to scan in two or more channels (frequencies of the laser) recently. This gives the rise to the possibility of obtaining diverse information about an area with the different spectral properties of objects. The paper presents an example of a multispectral ALS system - Titan by Optech - with the possibility of data including the analysis of digital elevation models accuracy and data density. As a result of the study, the high relative accuracy of LiDAR acquisition in three spectral bands was proven. The mean differences between digital terrain models (DTMs) were less than 0.03 m. The data density analysis showed the influence of the laser wavelength. The points clouds that were tested had average densities of 25, 23 and 20 points per square metre respectively for green (G), near-infrared (NIR) and shortwave-infrared (SWIR) lasers. In this paper, the possibility of the generation of colour composites using orthoimages of laser intensity reflectance and its classification capabilities using data from airborne multispectral laser scanning for land cover mapping are also discussed and compared with conventional photogrammetric techniques.