Vehicle regional scanner

A method for detecting the height of the ground covered with vegetation in front of a vehicle having an adjustable dozer blade, comprising the steps of:

• scanning a plurality of laser beams in front of the vehicle, each of said beams following a path essentially transverse to the motion of the vehicle, wherein each beam traverses said its associated path at a speed sufficiently slow to allow the beam to penetrate the vegetation and be reflected from the ground at some points along said path;
• sensing the reflected light of each laser beam at a plurality of discrete points along its associated path;
• determining from the sensed reflected laser light the time of flight of each laser beam at each of the plurality of points;
• and
• calculating the height of the ground along each path based upon the longest time of flight.

A vehicle comprising:

• a dozer blade mounted on the vehicle and capable of being raised and lowered and tilted;
• a propulsion system connected to move the vehicle in a forward direction;
• a laser for creating a laser beam mounted on the vehicle;
• a scanner for scanning the laser beam along a path in front of the vehicle at a speed slow enough to penetrate vegetation and be reflected by the ground;
• a sensor for sensing reflected laser light mounted on the chassis adjacent to said scanner;
• and
• a processor for determining from sensed reflected laser light the time of flight of the laser beam at a plurality of points along said path;
• a memory device for storing the determined time of flight for each of said plurality of points;
• and said processor calculating the height of the ground based on the longest of the determined times of flight.