Lidar is a method for determining ranges by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for … See more

Under the direction of Malcolm Stitch, the Hughes Aircraft Company introduced the first lidar-like system in 1961, shortly after the invention of the laser. Intended for satellite tracking, this system combined laser-focus… See more

A lidar determines the distance of an object or a surface with the formula:
where c is the speed of light, d is the distance between the detector and the object or surface being detected, and t is the time sp… See more

Lidar can be oriented to nadir, zenith, or laterally. For example, lidar altimeters look down, an atmospheric lidar looks up, and lidar-based collision avoidance systems are side-looking.
Laser proje… See more

Airborne lidar (also airborne laser scanning) is when a laser scanner, while attached to an aircraft during flight, creates a 3-D point cloud model of the landscape. This is currently the most detailed and accurate method of c… See more

Terrestrial applications of lidar (also terrestrial laser scanning) happen on the Earth's surface and can be either stationary or mobile. Stationary terrestrial scanning is most common as a survey method, for example in … See more