Development and Validation of a LiDAR Scanner for 3D Evaluation of Soil Vegetal Coverage

Abstract

Water and wind erosion are serious problems due to the loss of soil productivity. The coverage of soil, by means of cover crops or crops residues, is an effective tool to prevent wind and water erosion. The soil coverage could curb wind on the surface, avoid water runoff and reduce direct soil evaporation. Residue spatial distribution is the main factor to successful soil protection. The current work presents details of a prototype, design and validation as a measuring instrument to sense the height of vegetal crop residues based on a short-ranged laser distance sensor (LiDAR) and a computer numerical control (CNC) mechanism. The results obtained in this work showed a high level of confidence to estimate the height and composition of soil vegetal coverage.