Evaluation of forest machinery ground mobility using LiDAR data

Off-road mobility of forest machinery has been extensively studied. In the recent years the increased utilization, even in Alpine mountain areas, of forwarders and harvesters have highlighted the necessity to better understand the ground mobility of such heavy machinery. This paper will explore the possibility of using LiDAR data and derived Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) on the evaluation of ground mobility for forest machinery in mountain areas, by defining an index which considers both terrain slope and roughness