Investigative Methods to Assess a Drone-Based, Topobathy LiDAR Sensor for Shallow-Water Munitions Response

Investigative methods are developed to assess the capability of a drone-based, topographic / bathymetric (topobathy) LiDAR for the detection and characterization of munitions found at underwater sites of less than 5-meter water depth. Traditional bathymetric LiDAR techniques are limited in resolution and challenged by shallow waters. The drone-based, topobathy LiDAR by LiteWave Technologies, Inc. (formerly ASTRALiTe, Inc.) provides high-definition maps of subsurface objects / bathymetry in shallow waters while having the platform agility to rapidly revisit areas of interest. Demonstration data from the LiteWave drone-based, scanning, topobathy LiDAR are presented to empirically determine spatial accuracy and resolutions from 3D point clouds of shallow waters. Deployed corner-cube retroreflectors offer a calibration opportunity to evaluate performance under different depths and water conditions. Uncertainty quantification (UQ) schemes that leverage a more complete description of total aggregated uncertainties, from system level to geo-referencing, are demonstrated to improve vertical and horizontal position uncertainties of LiDAR points. Actual system parameters are used as input to a UQ scheme to assess errors and sensitivity of estimating position of the 3D point cloud from the drone-based platform.