(Riegl: Orlando, FL) -- Riegl USA, developer and manufacturer of 3-D laser scanners, has released the fully automatic Multiple Time Around (MTA) zone-detection workflow for the LMS-Q680i scanner. RiMTA is an automatic range ambiguity-resolution algorithm that detects all MTA zones automatically during post processing. Multiple Time Around (MTA) processing allows multiple laser pulses to be in the air during data acquisition. The RiMTA improvement is especially beneficial for projects in mountainous terrain because it relaxes the requirements in flight planning.

Combining both a hardware and a software approach, RiMTA analyzes the pulse position modulation (PPM) applied to the Q680i scanner’s pulse repetition rate (PRR). This small variation (e.g., ± 2.7kHz at 400kHz) of the pulse repetition rate flags each emitted laser pulse where the software algorithm analyzes its effect on the measurement ranges. Only pulses in the correct zone will not be affected by this time offset caused by the modulation. This technique allows for the software analysis to automatically determine which MTA zone the data point lies in by looking for the lowest calculated noise in the data.

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