Review of mobile mapping and surveying technologies

Mobile surveying is currently one of the most popular topics in the LiDAR industry. The collection of highly precise point cloud data is provided by laser scanning systems on moving platforms with an integrated navigation solution. The potential of LiDAR based mobile surveying technology is now well proven. This article introduces an analysis on the current performance of some outstanding mobile terrestrial laser scanning systems. In this work, an overview of the positioning, scanning and imaging devices integrated into these systems is also presented. As part of this study, a systematic comparison of the navigation and LiDAR specifications provided by the manufacturers is provided. Our review suggests that mobile laser scanning systems can mainly be divided into two categories (mapping and surveying) depending on their final purpose, accuracy, range and resolution requirements. A refined integrated analysis based on hardware components could be expected to cause further improvements on these results.