Reliability of Terrestrial Laser Scanner Measurement in Slope Monitoring

Abstract

Dense 3D point clouds provided by terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) has demonstrated significant reliability of TLS in landslide monitoring. However, existence of errors in measurement is inevitable which eventually has decreased the quality of TLS data. To concretely measure the capability of TLS in landslide monitoring, this study has performed two epoch measurements using tacheometry (for benchmarking) and TLS (Topcon GLS-2000) at Kulim Techno City, Kedah, Malaysia. Sixteen (16) artificial targets were well-distributed on the slope to determine the accuracy of the employed TLS. Results obtained revealed that Topcon GLS- 2000 provides 0.006m of accuracy. However, the presence of high incidence angles in TLS measurement has limited the capability to identify the significant displacement of the targets.