Bathymetry by fusion of airborne Laserscanning and multi-spectral Aerial Imagery

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Uwe Sörgel
• Subject Area: Geodesy, Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Geoinformatics, Cartography
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 313499925

Bathymetric Digital Elevation Models (DEM) of the underwater floor of rivers, lakes, and coastal areas are usually measured by ship-based sonar devices. This is both costly and time consuming; furthermore, the sounding vessels cannot operate in shallow waters. Hence, there is a great demand to apply methods of Photogrammetry and remote sensing, which enable acquiring rapidly and almost seamlessly data of vast areas. These techniques can roughly be sorted into two groups: analysis of airborne or space borne imagery and airborne laser scanning (ALS) using a green laser.Usually exclusively one of those techniques is applied; however, each method comes along with its advantages and shortcomings. In this project, we aim at fusion of ALS data and multi- or hyper-spectral imagery that are captured simultaneously from the same carrier. The complementary measurement principles allow to a certain degree to yield more complete and ac-curate DEM of the underwater floor. This fusion shall be conducted based on a statistical approach, which considers context.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants