Testing a vehicle-based scanning lidar sensor for crop detection

Light detection and ranging (lidar) systems are widely used in space, airborne, and terrestrial applications. In agriculture, lidar systems have the potential to gather crop stand parameters. Taking these parameters into consideration, crop production processes such as fertilizing, crop protection, and harvesting can be optimized in real time. The vehicle-based use of lidar technology in agriculture for collecting such parameters is in the initial stage of research and development. This paper investigates a vehicle-based laser scanner system with respect to its measuring properties in maize stands and discusses measurement errors caused by the laser beam shape, laser layer, laser echoes, angle of view, and variable data density and their elimination probabilities. The scanner data were used to generate a three-dimensional (3D) model. The height and volume calculated from the model correlate with the weighted biomass. Furthermore, the results show a velocity independence over a wide speed range. The validation of these values demonstrates the high robustness of this sensor.