Radiometric correction in laser scanning

Scanning airborne Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) has gained considerable acceptance in both scientific and commercial communities as a tool for topographic measurement, becoming an industry‐standard tool for collecting high‐resolution topographic data. Once processed, the laser scan data consist of a series of values of coordinates of points at which the laser beam has been reflected. In addition to the coordinates for every single reflection, the backscattering amplitude is also recorded. We describe a methodology to achieve an accurate radiometric calibration of the laser amplitude data so as to generate pseudo‐reflectance maps of the surface illuminated by the laser. The pseudo‐reflectance maps have then been used to classify the target illuminated by the laser. The method can be considered as a potential aid to enhance the accuracy of laser data classification.