In December 2017, the UK Ministry of Environmental Protection announced a new plan to complete the scan of the entire country by 2020. The current progress is 75%. The new plan will cover mountain and forest areas that have not been fully scanned before, and the accuracy will be increased to 1 meter. The UK Environmental Protection Agency has opened the database to supplement the new green laser pointer data at a rate of half a year.
During scanning, the laser scanning device mounted on the aircraft emits 1 million pulses per second. The distance between the aircraft and the object is measured by calculating the time of emission and reflection to form a lattice, and a 3D image is formed after post-processing. The remote sensing team of the British Ministry of Environmental Protection has two aircraft Cessna404 (G-MIND) and Cessna406 (G-LEAF) engaged in the project. In addition to the lidar equipment, the remote sensing team is also equipped with aerial photography equipment for taking high-resolution pictures.
Green laser pointers are usually scanned in winter, during which the leaves have the least impact on drawing information. The data from these lidars have helped archaeologists to discover at least four ancient Roman roads, which are roads built during the Roman period. These roads, which were built during the ancient Roman period and were used to strengthen the control of various places, are usually 5-7 meters wide and 0.5 meters high in the middle of the road. Although large in scale, it is difficult to be found because it is buried underground and severely eroded.