So I’ve got this project where we want to measure the depths of some areas that are covered in water. Basically, we want to find out how deep the puddles are, from a few centimeters to a few meters.
And I’ve got this Lidar-Lite 3 Laser Rangefinder that I could possibly mount on one of my drones .
Question is, is this a match ? Will the Lidar go all through water and give me my water depth, or rather reflect on the surface , or somewhere in between depending on some parameters ? Anyone ever tried this ?
Thanks in advance for any advice or idea on this matter !
Nice day to you
LIDARs and water can be tricky. I cannot say what would be the depth you can reach with the LIDAR-Lite 3 in water, but it it likely not enough to do hydrographic surveying.
According to Wikipedia:
LiDAR are also in use in hydrographic surveying. Depending upon the clarity of the water LiDAR can measure depths from 0.9m to 40m with a vertical accuracy of 15 cm and horizontal accuracy of 2.5m.
Airborne topographic mapping lidars generally use 1064 nm diode pumped [YAG] lasers, while bathymetric (underwater depth research) systems generally use 532 nm frequency doubled diode pumped YAG lasers because 532 nm penetrates water with much less attenuation than does 1064 nm. Laser settings include the laser repetition rate (which controls the data collection speed).
It may actually be good enough to go through a few meters of water, so I may be able to try it !
Well, it’s a 905nm frequency LiDAR, so it may suffer a lot from attenuations… Maybe i’ll give it a try !
