Afana, A, Hunter, G, Davis, J, Rosser, NJ, Hardy, RJ & Williams, JG 2013, 'Integration of full waveform terrestrial laser scanners into a slope monitoring system', in PM Dight (ed.), Slope Stability 2013: Proceedings of the 2013 International Symposium on Slope Stability in Open Pit Mining and Civil Engineering, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, pp. 897-909, https://doi.org/10.36487/ACG_rep/1308_62_Afana
(https://papers.acg.uwa.edu.au/p/1308_62_Afana/)
Abstract: Forecasting of the timing of slope failure has been widely modelled using strain-rate based approaches. Such techniques are reliant upon high-precision data on slope deformation, yet conventionally a trade-off between monitoring precision and spatial resolution has to be made in mine slope safety systems. Newly available full waveform terrestrial laser scanners (FW-TLS) have been shown capable of capturing detailed additional metrics of rock slope surfaces, which from sequential scans allow significantly reduced uncertainties in change detection. Innovatively, this approach obtains both geometric and radiometric target surface information which is suited to the measurement of very small scale deformation, whilst retaining the spatially rich detail of TLS point-clouds.

We present data captured using this new technology integrated into the slope safety monitoring system ‘SiteMonitor’, to explore the opportunities offered by this new technology in characterising actively failing rock slopes in new ways. Results presented highlight the ability to resolve surface features at a scale appropriate to precursory mass wasting and creep in unstable rock slopes. These findings open the possibility for a step-change in the integration of recent strain-rate based predictive models with the unprecedented level of combined precision and detail offered by newly available FW-TLS data.