Mobile- and Drone-Based LiDAR Services for Interstate 90

Background

The South Dakota Department of Transportation (SDDOT) had dated survey throughout this I-90 corridor. This survey area was predominately within large, urban areas, meaning the amount of data required was very large, making aerial LiDAR an excellent choice for survey collection. Because of this, Houston Engineering, Inc. (HEI) was contracted to complete this survey using traditional survey methods along with mobile- and drone-based LiDAR.

The Project

Traditional surveying methods were used for portions of this project. However, mobile- and drone-based LiDAR were the primary methods of data collection.

Survey-related tasks for this project included:
• a pre-survey phone meeting with SDDOT staff,
• utilization of the existing project control network,
• set and surveyed LiDAR control targets,
• a digital level loop through all project control and LiDAR targets
• ground truthing, and
• topographic survey, as needed

Once the area was flown and the data was collected, HEI took the raw LiDAR data and completed a full feature extraction of the corridors, meaning all of the signs, bridges, and more were identified within the 1.2 billion points. The reality of this survey is that it’s not possible to get the same results via traditional means. As a result of our efforts, the SDDOT received an extremely accurate data set for their corridors with reduced survey man hours and reduced cost. This also meant that surveyors were in much safer conditions, keeping them off the busy interstate corridor.