A study on the automatic detection of railroad power lines using LiDAR data and RANSAC algorithm

Abstract

LiDAR has been one of the widely used and important technologies for 3D modeling of ground surface and objects because of its ability to provide dense and accurate range measurement. The objective of this research is to develop a method for automatic detection and modeling of railroad power lines using high density LiDAR data and RANSAC algorithms. For detecting railroad power lines, multi-echoes properties of laser data and shape knowledge of railroad power lines were employed. Cuboid analysis for detecting seed line segments, tracking lines, connecting and labeling are the main processes. For modeling railroad power lines, iterative RANSAC and least square adjustment were carried out to estimate the lines parameters. The validation of the result is very challenging due to the difficulties in determining the actual references on the ground surface. Standard deviations of 8cm and 5cm for x-y and z coordinates, respectively are satisfactory outcomes. In case of completeness, the result of visual inspection shows that all the lines are detected and modeled well as compare with the original point clouds. The overall processes are fully automated and the methods manage any state of railroad wires efficiently.