Slam-Based Backpack Laser Scanning for Forest Plot Mapping

Abstract

Acquisition of three-dimensional (3D) structural information is significant for forest measurements. To achieve faster data collection in forests, we design a backpack laser scanning (BLS) system using a single mobile laser scanning (MLS) scanner and specific to forest environments. The simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) approach based on the natural geometric characteristics of trees is used for BLS-based forest mapping, in which the skeleton line of the individual tree is extracted for scan matching and the incremental maps are adopted for global optimization of all the BLS point clouds. The final experimental results show that the SLAM-based BLS system achieves accurate forest plots mapping and allows reaching low mapping errors, in which the mean errors are approximately 3 cm in the horizontal and 2 cm in the vertical direction.