Laser Distance Sensors Evaluation for Geomatics Researches

In this study, an approach inspired by a standardized calibration method was used to test a laser distance meter (LDM). A laser distance sensor (LDS) was tested with respect to an LDM and then a statistical indicator explained that the former functions in a similar manner as the latter. Also, regression terms were used to estimate the additive error and scale the correction of the sensors. The specified distance was divided into several parts with percent of longest one and observed using two sensors, left and right. These sensors were evaluated by using the regression between the measured and the reference values. The results were computed using MINITAB 17 package software and excel office package. The accuracy of the results in this work was ± 4.4mm + 50.89 ppm and ± 4.96mm + 99.88 ppm for LDS1 and LDS2, respectively, depending on the LDM accuracy which was computed to the full range (100 m). Using these sensors can be very effective for industrial, 3D modeling purposes, and many other applications, especially that it is inexpensive and available in many versions.