Deformation analysis of a reference wall towards the uncertainty investigation of terrestrial laser scanners

The perfect knowledge about the scanned object's geometry is essential for the empirical analysis of the stochastic properties of terrestrial laser scanners (TLSs). The Bonn reference wall is intended to be used as a reference for TLS quality investigations. Therefore, it is necessary to know the geometry of the wall at each time of scanning to avoid the misinterpretation of possible movements as systematic effects in the scanner. For this reason, we investigate the stability of the Bonn reference wall in this study. This includes the definition of a geodetic datum, the quantification of displacements, and the establishment of a suited deformation model. Since we discover a movement of about 1 mm within one day and up to 7 mm over the year, it is necessary to establish a cause-response deformation model to correct the wall movements in the scans. This study proposes two dynamic deformation models to compensate for the movements of the wall within one day and within a year. Our results show that it is better to measure the initial geometry of the wall each day since 89 % of the relative movements can be reduced to a maximum of 0.25 mm with a standard deviation of 0.16 mm (0.23 mm without modeling). If the shape is not initially known each day, the standard deviation of the displacements can be reduced from 1.10 mm to 0.61 mm, but the largest residuals still amount up to 2.5 mm, which is not sufficient for stochastic TLS investigations.