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Laser Scanning and Applications

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Optical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025 | Viewed by 5814

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Virgil-Florin Duma

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. 3OM Optomechatronics Group, Faculty of Engineering, Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad, 310130 Arad, Romania
2. Doctoral School, Polytechnic University of Timisoara, 300006 Timisoara, Romania
Interests: optomechatronics; laser systems; biomedical imaging; optical coherence tomography (OCT); measuring systems; optical metrology; materials study; biomaterials characterization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Laser scanning is utilized in a myriad of applications, from commercial (barcode scanning and printers) to industrial (including laser manufacturing, 3D printing, and optical metrology) and high-end, the latter in biomedical imaging (including confocal microscopy and optical coherence tomography (OCT)), non-destructive testing (NDT), Remote Sensing, and Security and Defense. All such applications involve sensing as a critical aspect.

Laser scanners include the most common galvanometer scanners, fast-rotational polygon mirrors, and refractive systems, such as scanners with lenses or prisms (the latter with the most utilized Risley prisms). Other scanners, such as acousto- or electro–optical, are also of interest. The tendency to miniaturize such devices imposed the development of Micro-Electro–Mechanical Systems (MEMS).

Scanning can be 1D, 2D, 3D, and even 4D, the latter time-included. Scanning modalities include common raster scanning, Lissajous, spiral, Risley-based, or, lately, adaptive scanning—to mention just a few.

All of the above concern the topic of laser scanning and define the aims of this Special Issue. Different aspects are of interest for the development and optimizations of different scanning systems, including optical, mechanical (as mobile, sometimes fast-moving elements are involved; therefore, Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is necessary to assess structural integrity and functional deformations), electro–mechanical design and manufacturing, opto–mechanical (for errors evaluations and measures to tackle them), and control and automation (for precise positioning and control of moving elements). Included research can address theoretical aspects, simulations, and experimental works.

While this forum is open to all researchers, it also provides a selection of papers presented at the 2nd International Conference ‘Advances in 3OM: Opto-Mechatronics, Opto-Mechanics, and Optical Metrology’, Dec. 11-14, 2023, organized in Timisoara, Romania, European Capital of Culture in 2023.

Prof. Dr. Virgil-Florin Duma
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • laser scanning
  • optomechatronics
  • optical devices
  • laser systems
  • galvanometer scanners
  • risley prisms
  • polygon mirrors
  • MEMS and MOEMS
  • Finite Element Analysis (FEA)
  • control and automation
  • imaging techniques
  • Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT)
  • lasers in medicine
  • optical metrology
  • Non-Destructive Testing (NDT)
  • laser manufacturing
  • remote sensing
  • security and defense

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 5674 KiB  
Article
Development of a Predictive Model for Runway Water Film Depth
by Peida Lin and Chiapei Chou
Sensors 2025, 25(7), 2202; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25072202 - 31 Mar 2025
Viewed by 243
Abstract
Water film depth (WFD) on runways is a key factor contributing to aircraft hydroplaning during takeoff and landing. Thus, the early measurement or prediction of WFD during rain is critical for reducing accidents. Most existing WFD prediction models are derived from experiments conducted [...] Read more.
Water film depth (WFD) on runways is a key factor contributing to aircraft hydroplaning during takeoff and landing. Thus, the early measurement or prediction of WFD during rain is critical for reducing accidents. Most existing WFD prediction models are derived from experiments conducted on road surfaces. However, an accurate prediction of WFD on runways and reduced hydroplaning risk require a precise empirical prediction model. This study conducted experiments involving four parameters—rainfall intensity, pavement mean texture depth, drainage length, and transverse slope—to develop a WFD dataset specific to different runway conditions. The multiple linear regression method is employed to establish a model for WFD predictions. The proposed National Taiwan University (NTU) model’s predictability is compared with three existing empirical models using NTU and Gallaway datasets. The results clearly demonstrate the superior accuracy and robustness of the NTU model compared to the other evaluated models. The NTU model offers a precise and practical predictive formula, making it highly suitable for integration into contaminated runway warning and management systems. This study employed a laser displacement sensor and a programmable logic controller to obtain high-accuracy, high-sampling-rate WFD data. Modern automated data acquisition enables simultaneous measurement at multiple points and captures the complete WFD curve from zero to a stable depth, which was previously difficult to obtain. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Laser Scanning and Applications)
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17 pages, 30535 KiB  
Article
A Method to Evaluate Orientation-Dependent Errors in the Center of Contrast Targets Used with Terrestrial Laser Scanners
by Bala Muralikrishnan, Xinsu Lu, Mary Gregg, Meghan Shilling and Braden Czapla
Sensors 2025, 25(2), 505; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25020505 - 16 Jan 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 699
Abstract
Terrestrial laser scanners (TLS) are portable dimensional measurement instruments used to obtain 3D point clouds of objects in a scene. While TLSs do not require the use of cooperative targets, they are sometimes placed in a scene to fuse or compare data from [...] Read more.
Terrestrial laser scanners (TLS) are portable dimensional measurement instruments used to obtain 3D point clouds of objects in a scene. While TLSs do not require the use of cooperative targets, they are sometimes placed in a scene to fuse or compare data from different instruments or data from the same instrument but from different positions. A contrast target is an example of such a target; it consists of alternating black/white squares that can be printed using a laser printer. Because contrast targets are planar as opposed to three-dimensional (like a sphere), the center of the target might suffer from errors that depend on the orientation of the target with respect to the TLS. In this paper, we discuss a low-cost method to characterize such errors and present results obtained from a short-range TLS and a long-range TLS. Our method involves comparing the center of a contrast target against the center of spheres and, therefore, does not require the use of a reference instrument or calibrated objects. For the short-range TLS, systematic errors of up to 0.5 mm were observed in the target center as a function of the angle for the two distances (5 m and 10 m) and resolutions (30 points-per-degree (ppd) and 90 ppd) considered for this TLS. For the long-range TLS, systematic errors of about 0.3 mm to 0.8 mm were observed in the target center as a function of the angle for the two distances (5 m and 10 m) at low resolution (28 ppd). Errors of under 0.3 mm were observed in the target center as a function of the angle for the two distances at high resolution (109 ppd). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Laser Scanning and Applications)
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18 pages, 29394 KiB  
Article
Application of a Laser Profile Sensor for the Full-Field Measurement of the Continuous Icing Process of Rotating Blades
by Angelos Filippatos, Simon Schwab, Tino Wollmann and Maik Gude
Sensors 2024, 24(14), 4480; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24144480 - 11 Jul 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 987
Abstract
With the advancing energy transition, icing is a growing problem in the wind turbine sector. The development of systems to detect and mitigate icing makes it necessary to understand its basic behavior and characteristics. This paper proposes a method for the continuous and [...] Read more.
With the advancing energy transition, icing is a growing problem in the wind turbine sector. The development of systems to detect and mitigate icing makes it necessary to understand its basic behavior and characteristics. This paper proposes a method for the continuous and full-field measurement of the icing process of rotating blades, using a single line laser profile scanner. Inside of a climate chamber, a rotor is driven by a motor, while a system of nozzles provides a fine water dust, which leads to ice accumulating on simple NACA blades, which in turn is measured by a triangulation laser. The measurement data are cleared from outliers and presented as a surface in 3D space. An alpha shape is used to reconstruct and extract the volume of the ice between a reference and a measurement surface, using the corresponding Matlab function. Appropriate input parameters for the function and offsetting of the reference surface to improve the results are compared and discussed. The resulting system is able to detect small changes in the ice layer thickness in the sub-millimeter range. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Laser Scanning and Applications)
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17 pages, 10021 KiB  
Article
Extraction of Moso Bamboo Parameters Based on the Combination of ALS and TLS Point Cloud Data
by Suying Fan, Sishuo Jing, Wenbing Xu, Bin Wu, Mingzhe Li and Haochen Jing
Sensors 2024, 24(13), 4036; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24134036 - 21 Jun 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1034
Abstract
Extracting moso bamboo parameters from single-source point cloud data has limitations. In this article, a new approach for extracting moso bamboo parameters using airborne laser scanning (ALS) and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) point cloud data is proposed. Using the field-surveyed coordinates of plot [...] Read more.
Extracting moso bamboo parameters from single-source point cloud data has limitations. In this article, a new approach for extracting moso bamboo parameters using airborne laser scanning (ALS) and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) point cloud data is proposed. Using the field-surveyed coordinates of plot corner points and the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm, the ALS and TLS point clouds were aligned. Considering the difference in point distribution of ALS, TLS, and the merged point cloud, individual bamboo plants were segmented from the ALS point cloud using the point cloud segmentation (PCS) algorithm, and individual bamboo plants were segmented from the TLS and the merged point cloud using the comparative shortest-path (CSP) method. The cylinder fitting method was used to estimate the diameter at breast height (DBH) of the segmented bamboo plants. The accuracy was calculated by comparing the bamboo parameter values extracted by the above methods with reference data in three sample plots. The comparison results showed that by using the merged data, the detection rate of moso bamboo plants could reach up to 97.30%; the R2 of the estimated bamboo height was increased to above 0.96, and the root mean square error (RMSE) decreased from 1.14 m at most to a range of 0.35–0.48 m, while the R2 of the DBH fit was increased to a range of 0.97–0.99, and the RMSE decreased from 0.004 m at most to a range of 0.001–0.003 m. The accuracy of moso bamboo parameter extraction was significantly improved by using the merged point cloud data. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Laser Scanning and Applications)
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20 pages, 2657 KiB  
Article
On the Angular Control of Rotating Lasers by Means of Line Calculus on Hyperboloids
by Rudi Penne, Ivan De Boi and Steve Vanlanduit
Sensors 2023, 23(13), 6126; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23136126 - 3 Jul 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1551
Abstract
We propose a new paradigm for modelling and calibrating laser scanners with rotation symmetry, as is the case for lidars or for galvanometric laser systems with one or two rotating mirrors. Instead of bothering about the intrinsic parameters of a physical model, we [...] Read more.
We propose a new paradigm for modelling and calibrating laser scanners with rotation symmetry, as is the case for lidars or for galvanometric laser systems with one or two rotating mirrors. Instead of bothering about the intrinsic parameters of a physical model, we use the geometric properties of the device to model it as a specific configuration of lines, which can be recovered by a line-data-driven procedure. Compared to universal data-driven methods that train general line models, our algebraic-geometric approach only requires a few measurements. We elaborate the case of a galvanometric laser scanner with two mirrors, that we model as a grid of hyperboloids represented by a grid of 3×3 lines. This provides a new type of look-up table, containing not more than nine elements, lines rather than points, where we replace the approximating interpolation with exact affine combinations of lines. The proposed method is validated in a realistic virtual setting. As a collateral contribution, we present a robust algorithm for fitting ruled surfaces of revolution on noisy line measurements. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Laser Scanning and Applications)
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