Scan Alignment and 3-D Surface Modeling with a Helicopter Platform

Sebastian Thrun, Mark Diel, Dirk Haehnel

This paper describes initial results for a laser-based aerial mapping system. Our approach applies a real-time laser scan matching algorithm to 2-D range data acquired by a remotely controlled helicopter. Results obtain for urban and natural terrain exhibit an unprecedented level of spatial detail in the resulting 3-D maps.

The full paper is available in gzipped Postscript and PDF

@INPROCEEDINGS{Thrun03c,
  AUTHOR	= {Thrun, S. and Diel, Mark and H\"{a}hnel, D.},
  TITLE		= {Scan Alignment and 3D Surface Modeling with a Helicopter Platform},
  YEAR		= {2003},
  BOOKTITLE	= {Proceedings of the International Conference on Field and Service Robotics},
  ADDRESS	= {Lake Yamanaka, Japan}
}