Abstract
The current generation of airborne laser altimeter sensors are being used in the measurement of Earth landforms for a wide variety of science disciplines including geophysics, ecosystem dynamics, hydrology, and glaciology. Data products of surface elevation and surface content are now available from flight programs to monitor dynamic terrain in regions of volcanic and seismic activity, assess vegetation canopy structure in old and new growth forests, and map ice sheets and glaciers. Airborne laser altimeters typically measure round-trip propagation times of short (≤10 nsec) pulses generated by diode-pumped solid-state lasers and also measure laser-pulse echo characteristics with high-speed (nsec) electronic digitization. Data rates of hundreds of megabytes per flight hour from laser altimeters working up to 10,000 pulses per sec are now routine as we seek to learn the shape and the content of the Earth's surface by this form of lidar we call laser altimetry. Airborne laser altimeters are also becoming more capable of generating scan patterns and three-dimensional surface images; thus greatly extending the measurement scope beyond simple profiles.
© 1996 Optical Society of America
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