Airborne laser hydrography in Australia

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Abstract
The Australian laser airborne depth sounder WRELADS II was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of using airborne laser techniques for hydrographic survey. This paper describes the system, the experimental program used for its evaluation, and some results obtained by it. Development of the system over a five-year period involved 550 h of airborne evaluation, including the collection of data during 22 sorties over a calibrated test range. Analysis of these data has permitted development of an empirical depth bias model. It is shown that the system meets the requirements of the Royal Australian Navy Hydrographic Service for depth accuracy and provides an adequate data yield.