Snow depth measurement using the structured pattern generator

Abstract

This paper describes a snow depth measurement mechanism utilizing the high power laser diode module with the grid pattern generator mounted at the laser head and CCD camera with a dark red band-pass filter which blocks UV and shorter visible wavelengths and passes longer wavelengths of light between 660mm and 680mm wavelengths. The proposed snow measurement algorithms are based on the laser triangulation method and data fusion method with the grid pattern image and laser. The developed snow measurement device is developed to overcome the limitation in which the traditional snow depth measurement systems only profiled the local point or area over the snow surface. To implement the area-based snow depth measurement, the proposed system is operated along the vertical axis to scan the pre-defined height position between the ground and 1500mm and within this interval, the system measures the height of the snow plate, which simulates the snow depth as accurately as 1.2mm resolution. Consequently, we have done successful experiments on snow measurements using laser and camera. Moreover, we have evaluated this device under snowfall for further studying.