Determining the volume of soil masses using different measurement techniques

Calculating the volume for various types of surfaces and materials is important for many branches of engineering sciences. Correct volume calculation often has a significant impact on the cost and time of a given project. These type of calculations are already applied at the design level. Measurement of cubature is crucial, for example, in construction and mining. The paper presents an analysis of and calculation results for measuring the volume of soil masses using different measurement techniques, which include: LIDAR (in this case of terrestrial and airborne laser scanning), photos taken with the use of UAV and measurements in the GNSS method. The object of the study was an earth mound located in the Park Dębnicki in Kraków. Relative volume error has been calculated in relation to the terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) method. For each of the tested methods, the error remained within the limits allowed by the standards and amounted to 0.2% for airborne laser scanning (ALS), 2.3% for photos obtained from UAVs and 3.4% for the GNNS-RTK method. The results of tests are presented in graphic and tabular forms. The obtained results were compared and the most advantageous measurement techniques to be used in determining the cubic capacity of this particular research object was indicated.