New capabilities of the "SHOALS" airborne lidar bathymeter

The technology and methodology of airborne laser bathymetry are far from ma ture, and new capabilities continue to be attained. The SHOALS lidar system was recently augmented with the ability to utilize kinematic GPS (KGPS) wi th on-the-fly (OTF) phase ambiguity resolution to permit the system to be u sed more extensively over land and for shoreline and other topographic mapp ing, in addition to underwater bathymetry. The seamless integration of thes e capabilities permits continuous surveying across the land/water boundary. Importantly, this also permits the production of sea bottom and topographi c elevations without the need for concurrently measured water-level data. A lgorithms and procedures associated with the use of OTF KGPS are presented along with examples of performance. Published by Elsevier Science Inc.