Refraction error correction of Airborne LiDAR Bathymetry data considering sea surface waves

Abstract Airborne Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) Bathymetry (ALB) has an unparalleled advantage in integrated sea-land measurements, especially in the acquisition of topographic data in shallow water areas. Sea surface waves are an important factor affecting the quality of ALB data. This paper presents a method that strictly corrects the sea surface wave-induced refraction error for each seabed laser pulse without any complex modeling of the sea surface. In this method, an adaptive neighborhood selection method is first used to calculate the normal sea surface at the moment when a laser pulse enters the water, and then a laser pulse refraction error correction model considering sea surface waves is constructed. The distance condition equation, the angle condition equation and the coplanar condition equation are established based on Snell's law and the geometric relationship among the incident laser pulse, the normal vector of the wavy sea surface and the actual refracted ray in order to calculate the coordinates of each laser point at the seabed after refraction error correction. The experimental results show that sea surface waves have a significant impact on the three-dimensional point cloud coordinates of the underwater topography. Even in calm sea conditions, the plane coordinate displacement error of the seabed point caused by the sea surface waves may reach the meter level, and the depth coordinate displacement error can also exceed 0.2 m. The corrected displacement errors of the planimetric coordinates are significantly greater than the corrected displacement errors of the depth coordinates, which can effectively improve the quality of the ALB data.