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3-D Site Mapping with the CMU Autonomous Helicopter
journal contribution
posted on 1998-01-01, 00:00 authored by Ryan Miller, Omead AmidiThis paper describes a scanning laser rangefinder developed for integration with the
Carnegie Mellon University autonomous helicopter. The combination of an
unmanned, autonomous helicopter with a 3-D scanning laser rangefinder has many
potential applications; such as terrain modeling or structure inspection. To achieve
high accuracy (10 cm) in each 3-D measurement, careful attention must be paid to minimizing errors, in particular, errors in measuring the direction of the laser’s
beam. This paper discusses our approach to minimize these errors. Results are presented
from early test flights.