An overview of the airborne bathymetric lidar reflectance data processing

Abstract

In addition to the well-developed bathymetric LiDAR (Light Detecting and Ranging) remote sensing technique, Airborne Hydrography AB (AHAB) has presented a new bathymetric LiDAR reflectance processing technique which provides new applications of producing seafloor reflectance image, seafloor identification and classification. In the past decade, HawkEye II bathymetric LiDAR systems produced by AHAB collected and processed over 100,000 square kilometer LiDAR reflectance data in more than ten countries in Europe, America, Oceania, Indian Ocean and Asia. In this paper, we introduce the background of bathymetry LiDAR, the algorithm and methods used in the bathymetric LiDAR reflectance processing, the reflectance image and seafloor classification applications.