High-precision UAV-borne single-photon LiDAR by adaptive averaging

Didi Zhai; Zhaohui Li; Weihua Zhang; Mingzhi Fei; Sinuo Lu; Xiuliang Chen; Haifeng Pan; Guang Wu

doi:10.1364/OE.550911

High-precision UAV-borne single-photon LiDAR by adaptive averaging

Didi Zhai, Zhaohui Li^*, Weihua Zhang, Mingzhi Fei, Sinuo Lu, Xiuliang Chen, Haifeng Pan, Guang Wu

^*Corresponding author for this work

Institute for Advanced Study in Precision Spectroscopy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with light detection and ranging (LiDAR) represent a flexible and low-cost approach to remote sensing. However, UAVs have limited payload capacity and power consumption, constraining the measurement precision and point cloud acquisition rate of onboard LiDAR systems. In this paper, we developed a single-photon LiDAR using a low-power, high-repetition-rate pulsed laser to achieve a high point cloud rate. To overcome limitations in precision due to the system response function on moving platforms, we propose an adaptive averaging method. Taking advantage of dense echo points of the single-photon LiDAR, the ranging precision was improved from 12.4 cm to 2.8 cm for the fixed target and fixed platform by using the adaptive averaging method. As for the UAV platform, the ranging precision could also be improved by 2 to 4 times for different ground targets, without considering the changes in the flight platform’s attitude.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	13660-13672
Number of pages	13
Journal	Optics Express
Volume	33
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.550911
State	Published - 24 Mar 2025

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title = "High-precision UAV-borne single-photon LiDAR by adaptive averaging",

abstract = "Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with light detection and ranging (LiDAR) represent a flexible and low-cost approach to remote sensing. However, UAVs have limited payload capacity and power consumption, constraining the measurement precision and point cloud acquisition rate of onboard LiDAR systems. In this paper, we developed a single-photon LiDAR using a low-power, high-repetition-rate pulsed laser to achieve a high point cloud rate. To overcome limitations in precision due to the system response function on moving platforms, we propose an adaptive averaging method. Taking advantage of dense echo points of the single-photon LiDAR, the ranging precision was improved from 12.4 cm to 2.8 cm for the fixed target and fixed platform by using the adaptive averaging method. As for the UAV platform, the ranging precision could also be improved by 2 to 4 times for different ground targets, without considering the changes in the flight platform{\textquoteright}s attitude.",

author = "Didi Zhai and Zhaohui Li and Weihua Zhang and Mingzhi Fei and Sinuo Lu and Xiuliang Chen and Haifeng Pan and Guang Wu",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2025 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement.",

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doi = "10.1364/OE.550911",

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T1 - High-precision UAV-borne single-photon LiDAR by adaptive averaging

AU - Zhai, Didi

AU - Li, Zhaohui

AU - Zhang, Weihua

AU - Fei, Mingzhi

AU - Lu, Sinuo

AU - Chen, Xiuliang

AU - Pan, Haifeng

AU - Wu, Guang

PY - 2025/3/24

Y1 - 2025/3/24

N2 - Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with light detection and ranging (LiDAR) represent a flexible and low-cost approach to remote sensing. However, UAVs have limited payload capacity and power consumption, constraining the measurement precision and point cloud acquisition rate of onboard LiDAR systems. In this paper, we developed a single-photon LiDAR using a low-power, high-repetition-rate pulsed laser to achieve a high point cloud rate. To overcome limitations in precision due to the system response function on moving platforms, we propose an adaptive averaging method. Taking advantage of dense echo points of the single-photon LiDAR, the ranging precision was improved from 12.4 cm to 2.8 cm for the fixed target and fixed platform by using the adaptive averaging method. As for the UAV platform, the ranging precision could also be improved by 2 to 4 times for different ground targets, without considering the changes in the flight platform’s attitude.

AB - Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with light detection and ranging (LiDAR) represent a flexible and low-cost approach to remote sensing. However, UAVs have limited payload capacity and power consumption, constraining the measurement precision and point cloud acquisition rate of onboard LiDAR systems. In this paper, we developed a single-photon LiDAR using a low-power, high-repetition-rate pulsed laser to achieve a high point cloud rate. To overcome limitations in precision due to the system response function on moving platforms, we propose an adaptive averaging method. Taking advantage of dense echo points of the single-photon LiDAR, the ranging precision was improved from 12.4 cm to 2.8 cm for the fixed target and fixed platform by using the adaptive averaging method. As for the UAV platform, the ranging precision could also be improved by 2 to 4 times for different ground targets, without considering the changes in the flight platform’s attitude.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105001203447

U2 - 10.1364/OE.550911

DO - 10.1364/OE.550911

M3 - 文章

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SN - 1094-4087

VL - 33

SP - 13660

EP - 13672

JO - Optics Express

JF - Optics Express

IS - 6

ER -

High-precision UAV-borne single-photon LiDAR by adaptive averaging

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