2017 NOAA/OCM Unmanned Aerial System Lidar: Grand Bay NERR

Quantum Spatial (QSI) and PrecisionHawk (PH) collected lidar for test sites within the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) using an unmanned aerial system (UAS). Four sites were flown, covering a total of 177 acres. A fixed-wing PH Lancaster (revision 5) platform was used, carrying a Velodyne Puck VLP-16 based lidar system. The system provides 2 returns (strongest and last) with a pulse rate of 300 kHz using a 903 nm wavelength laser. Flights were conducted from May 9-11, 2017 and were flown at 50 meters above ground level.

Specifications for the collection included 30 pulses per square meter and 0.10 meter RMSE vertical accuracy in non-vegetated areas. The average first return density was over 105 points per square meter with an average ground classified density of over 3 points per square meter.

Deliverables included the lidar point cloud in LAS/LAZ format. Data were delivered in UTM zone 16 NAD83(2011) horizontally and NAVD88 (Geoid12b) meters vertically.
Lidar point clouds were projected back to geographic coordinates for storage in the Digital Coast Data Access Viewer and the vertical datum was converted to the ellipsoid.

Original contact information:
Contact Org: NOAA Office for Coastal Management
Phone: 843-740-1202
Email: coastal.info@noaa.gov