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Leveling with Mobile 3D-Laser Scanner to Measure Differential Settlement

Publication year Port and Airport Research Institute Technical Note 1263 2012.12
Author(s) Yoichi WATABE,Masanori TANAKA
Department
/Divison
Geotechnical Engineering Field Soil Mechanics and Geo-Environment Group
Executive Summary

Airport facilities, such as runway, taxiway and apron, are required to be flat as plane structure. In addition, elevation of the ground surface is very important information corresponding to land settlement in case of man-made island on soft clay deposit. Ground elevation has been measured by leveling, but recently, it is replaced by GPS measuring at some new airport facilities. GPS observation condition is generally ideal at airport facilities, because there is no obstacle in the sky to catch GPS signals. To avoid large manpower and long working period, leveling and GPS measuring prefer to be replaced by an efficient measuring system such as automated one. In this study, leveling using mobile 3D-laser scanner was attempted at the D-runway of the Tokyo Haneda Airport. Comparing a front scanner with a side scanner, outline of the system and measuring method are described, then measured data sets were treated to transform from point group to allocated mesh data. The data sets obtained by both methods are strongly affected by the errors of GPS observation; however, relative error during the measuring period was sufficiently small in an acceptable level in practice. To cover the runway of 80 m width, the front scanner requires four round (or eight one-way) drives because its scan range is narrow (less than 15 m); while the side scanner requires two round drives because scan range is wide (more than 50 m). To correct GPS error, it is recommended that at least one point where its elevation is known is included in the measuring range of mobile 3D-laser scanner.

PDF File /en/pdf/en/no1263.pdf