SBG Systems Dual INS/GNSS for UAV-based Topo & bathymetry

World’s first small-scale topo & bathy LiDAR

ASTRALiTe’s edge™ is the world’s first small-scale topographic and bathymetric scanning LiDAR that can detect small underwater objects, measure shallow water depth, and survey critical underwater infrastructure from a small UAV platform.

The edge™ can see beneath the water surface at depths from 0-5 meters, and is completely self-contained with its own INS/GNSS, battery and onboard computer.

It weighs about 5 kg and is designed for deployment on UAV systems for faster, safer and more accurate bathymetric surveys.

SBG’s PPK Direct Geo-referencing Solution

“We needed a motion and navigation solution for our LiDAR. Our requirements included high accuracy along with low size, weight, and power,” explains Andy Gisler, Director of Lidar Systems with ASTRALiTe. In addition, the system needed to be able to apply a PPK correction to the LiDAR data to provide higher accuracy results to ASTRALiTe’s customers.

Quanta, the dual antenna geo-referencing solution

The company chose the new geo-referencing solution from SBG Systems named Quanta. This Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) is specially designed to be integrated into mobile mapping systems. “The weight of the INS solution was especially important to us,” adds Andy.

ASTRALiTe’s system is to be flown on most UAVs, where light payload capacities are required for UAV compatibility. The ability to use two GPS antennas was key in our choice as we required good heading knowledge at slow flight speeds. Quanta directly and precisely geotags the point cloud in real-time and provides even higher performance in post-processing.

Qinertia Post-processing Software

Qinertia, SBG’s post-processing software gives access to offline RTK corrections from more than 7,000 base stations located in 164 countries.

Trajectory and orientation are greatly improved by processing inertial data and raw GNSS observables in forward and backward directions.

This advanced software also computes your base station position to quickly get your project to the centimeter accuracy.

We are very pleased with both the Quanta and with the Qinertia software package. SBG helped us work through the integration and data processing.

Andy Gisler, Director of Lidar Systems with ASTRALiTe

About ASTRALiTe

ASTRALiTe’s edge provides high-definition measurements both above and below the water surface and accurately measures the transition from land to water.

Additionally, the equipment provides simultaneous water and bottom surface detection at sub-centimeter accuracy and precision from shore through shallow waters — an industry first.

Find out more on Edge LiDAR !