Leica ALS50-II LIDAR

The ARSF LiDAR system, for data collected in 2009 onwards, is a Leica ALS50-II. This includes a full waveform upgrade for 2010 onwards.

The ALS50-II operates with laser radiation at 1064 nm. It works by firing a pulse every 4ns or 9ns and measuring the round trip time to when a reflection is detected. This is then converted into a distance. There are 2 banks of timing cards - each one with 4 cards. This means that it can measure up to 4 independent returns for each pulse (it only uses the 2nd bank of cards when operated at the higher pulse rate).

Further Information

For more in-depth and technical information about the sensor and processing please see the following pages. Note that these are written primarily for internal use and so may be technical in nature.

Discrete subsystem

• Sensors/LeicaLIDAR/MikesNotes - Mike's notes on the Leica training course in Aug 2008 (to be digested and turned into real wiki pages at some point in the future).
• Sensors/LeicaLIDAR/MarksNotes - Mark's bullet notes on the Leica training course in Aug 2008.
• Sensors/LeicaLIDAR/MashUp - The digestion of both sets of notes.

Full waveform subsystem

• Sensors/LeicaLIDAR/FWMarksNotes - Mark's notes on the Full Waveform training Jan 2010.
• Sensors/LeicaLIDAR/FWEmmasNotes - Emma's notes on the Full Waveform training Jan 2010.
• Sensors/LeicaLIDAR/FWMikesNotes - Mike's notes on the Full Waveform training Jan 2010.