The first half of the Masters thesis is the result of a survey made on the behalf of the Swedish company KORDAB International AB. The survey includes an overview of different positioning systems and some wireless communication techniques available on the market today. Positioning systems discussed are GPS, DGPS, AGPS and GSM positioning. Mobile Internet connections through mobile phones and communication through radio modems are mentioned and described as examples of wireless communication techniques. Examples of techniques described are HSCSD, GPRS, UMTS and MOBITEX. KORDAB is in the starting blocks to implement a real time positioning feature into their own technical information system GEOSECMA. This survey will give them a base which will help them to decide on which system to use for this feature. The second half of the thesis includes parts concerning a prototype made to exemplify how KORDAB could implement the real time positioning feature into GEOSECMA. The NMEA 0183 protocol, reference systems and transformation are described to give the necessary background knowledge for the construction and functionality of the prototype. The prototype is a GPS-communicator made as an interface between a GPS-receiver and GEOSECMA and its functionality is also described in this second half of the thesis. Feasible applications are also discussed to show the possibilities real time positioning gives. One application discussed is “Zoom and Auto highlighting”. This application is designed to help user of GEOSECMA to zoom in the map and highlighting the nearest object at current location.

<p>The first half of the Masters thesis is the result of a survey made on the behalf of the Swedish company KORDAB International AB. The survey includes an overview of different positioning systems and some wireless communication techniques available on the market today. Positioning systems discussed are GPS, DGPS, AGPS and GSM positioning. Mobile Internet connections through mobile phones and communication through radio modems are mentioned and described as examples of wireless communication techniques. Examples of techniques described are HSCSD, GPRS, UMTS and MOBITEX. KORDAB is in the starting blocks to implement a real time positioning feature into their own technical information system GEOSECMA. This survey will give them a base which will help them to decide on which system to use for this feature. </p><p>The second half of the thesis includes parts concerning a prototype made to exemplify how KORDAB could implement the real time positioning feature into GEOSECMA. The NMEA 0183 protocol, reference systems and transformation are described to give the necessary background knowledge for the construction and functionality of the prototype. The prototype is a GPS-communicator made as an interface between a GPS-receiver and GEOSECMA and its functionality is also described in this second half of the thesis. Feasible applications are also discussed to show the possibilities real time positioning gives. One application discussed is “Zoom and Auto highlighting”. This application is designed to help user of GEOSECMA to zoom in the map and highlighting the nearest object at current location.</p>

A mobile laser scanning (MLS) system equipped with a lidar, inertial navigation system and satellite positioning can be used to reconstruct georeferenced point-based models of the surveyed environments. Ideal reconstruction requires accurate trajectories that are challenging to obtain in forests. Satellite signals are heavily degraded under the forest canopy, while lidar-based positioning is often inefficient due to the forest’s unstructured and complex nature. Most forestry-related solutions compute or improve the trajectory in post-processing, focusing on accuracy rather than the possibility of real-time operation. On the other hand, real-time solutions exist, but they are primarily tested and evaluated in urban environments, and the forest’s effect on them is less known. In this study, high-quality, real-time point-based forest model generation was considered by applying techniques from the field of robotics. Forest data were collected with an MLS system mounted 1) on a stick carried by a person and 2) mounted on a forest harvester while performing thinning operations. The system’s trajectory was computed using lidar-inertial-based smoothing and mapping algorithms with real-time limitations. In addition, satellite measurements were either fused into the smoothing algorithm contributing to the trajectory estimation or were used to georeference the trajectory in a post-processing manner. Collecting reliable reference trajectories is difficult in forests. Therefore, this study mainly contains qualitative and relative evaluation. The results indicate that real-time and onboard processing is feasible for forest data with adequate accuracy. State-of-the-art edge and planar feature-based lidar odometry was the most accurate but could not fully maintain real-time operation. On the other hand, the normal distributions transform-based odometry can maintain fast and constant computation with slightly lower accuracy. Fusing the satellite positioning for the mapping reduced the internal integrity of the reconstructed point cloud models, and it is suggested to use it for post-processed georeferencing instead. / Ett mobilt laserskanningssystem (MLS) utrustat med ett lidar, tröghetsnavigeringssystem och satellitpositionering kan användas för att rekonstruera georefererade punktbaserade modeller av de undersökta miljöerna. Idealisk återuppbyggnad kräver exakta banor som är utmanande att uppnå i skogar. Satellitsignaler är kraftigt försämrade under skogens tak, medan lidarbaserad positionering ofta är ineffektiv på grund av skogens ostrukturerade och komplexa natur. De flesta skogsbruksrelaterade lösningar beräknar eller förbättrar banan i efterbearbetning, med fokus på noggrannhet snarare än möjligheten till drift i realtid. Å andra sidan finns realtidslösningar, men de är främst testade och utvärderade i stadsmiljöer och skogens påverkan på dem är mindre känd. I denna studie övervägdes högkvalitativ, punktbaserad skogsmodellgenerering i realtid genom att tillämpa tekniker från robotteknikområdet. Skogsdata samlades in med ett MLS-system monterat 1) på en pinne som bärs av en person och 2) monterad på en skogsskördare under gallringsoperationer. Systemets bana beräknades med hjälp av lidar-tröghetsbaserade utjämnings- och kartläggningsalgoritmer med realtidsbegränsningar. Dessutom fuserades satellitmätningar antingen in i utjämningsalgoritmen som bidrog till banuppskattningen eller användes för att georeferera banan på ett efterbearbetningssätt. Att samla pålitliga referensbanor är svårt i skogar. Därför innehåller denna studie främst kvalitativ och relativ utvärdering. Resultaten indikerar att bearbetning i realtid och ombord är möjlig för skogsdata med tillräcklig noggrannhet. Toppmodern kant- och planfunktionsbaserad lidarodometri var den mest exakta men kunde inte helt upprätthålla realtidsdrift. Å andra sidan kan normalfördelningstransformationsbaserad odometri upprätthålla snabb och konstant beräkning med något lägre noggrannhet. Att sammansmälta satellitpositioneringen för kartläggningen minskade den interna integriteten hos de rekonstruerade punktmolnmodellerna, och det föreslås att man istället använder den för efterbehandlad georeferens.