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

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.