Geodesy 6

Geodesy 6
REMOTE SENSING PA MORE

Passive and Active Remote Sensing
Passive sensing - the sensor uses Sun’s energy as the source of
illumination
Active sensing - the sensor is emitting the energy to the target and
collecting the reflected energy. Some examples of active sensors are
fluorosensor and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR).
Passive and Active Remote Sensing
Passive Sensors
The main disadvantage of passive sensors is that they can collect or
detect objects in the day time only because sun’s illumination is not
there at night, however they can record the naturally emitted energy
like Thermal infrared.
Unlike active sensors, passive sensor have the ability to produce fine
resolution image.
Active Sensors
Active sensor gives own energy for illumination so it is able to detect
and record the images at any time. They are weather independent.
Artificial microwaves can penetrate clouds, light and shadow. Radar
signals can penetrate into vegetation and soil and even give you the
surface information at mm to m depth level at the same time.
Active Sensors
Major disadvantage is that radar signals do not contain any spectral
characters while Passive Remote Sensing signals have spectral
characters.
Active Remote sensors are cost intensive also when compared to
passive sensor.
Platforms and Sensors
Sensor – refers to the instrument or device that takes the
measurement
◦ Radiometer, spectrometer, sounder, interferometer, synthetic
aperture radar, altimeter, lidar, etc.
Platform - the type of vehicle that supports or carries the sensor

◦ satellite, space shuttle, airplane, helicopter, balloon, ship
Sensors
Platforms
Satellite Classification by Mass
category mass range (kg)
large satellite > 1,000
medium-sized satellite 500-1,000
minisatellite 100-500
microsatellite 10-100
nanosatellite 1-10
picosatellite 0.1-1
femtosatellite < 0.1
Satellite Characteristics and
Resolution
Orbit
◦ the path followed by the satellite
◦ Orbits vary along with their altitude and their orientation and
rotation related to the Earth. The orbital change also influences the
satellite’s view of earth portion.
Geo-stationary /Geosynchronous
Orbit
◦ Revolve at speed matching the rotation of the earth
Orbit
◦ Used for cellphone satellites, television satellites, weather
satellites,
Orbit
Polar/Near-Polar Orbit
Move relative to a line running between the north and the south poles
Also called sun-synchronous because they cover each area of the world at a constant time of
day
Polar/Near-Polar Orbit
Remote Sensing Systems
Framing System
◦ Instantaneously acquire an image of an area, or frame, on the
terrain
Scanning System
◦ Employs a sensor with a narrow field of view (IFOV) that sweeps over
the terrain to build up and produce a two-dimensional image of the
surface.
Common Scanning Modes
Across/Cross-track Scanning
Scan the Earth in a series of lines, the lines are oriented
perpendicular to the direction of motion of the sensor platform
◦ Each line is scanned from one side of the sensor to the other, using a
rotating mirror
◦ Also called “Whiskbroom Scanning”
Along-track Scanning
Use the forward motion of the platform to record successive scan
lines and build up a two-dimensional image, perpendicular to the
flight direction.
Instead of a scanning mirror, they use a linear array of detectors (A)
located at the focal plane of the image (B) formed by lens systems
(C), which are "pushed" along in the flight track direction (along
track).
Along-track Scanning
Image Data Characteristics
Digital Image
Single Band: Blue
Single Band: Green
Single Band: Red
Single Band: Near Infrared
True Color Composite
False Color Composite
Resolutions of Remote Sensing
Spatial Resolution (IFOV/GSD) and Coverage (FOV)
◦ What area and how detailed
Spectral Resolution and coverage
◦ What colors - bands
Radiometric Resolution and coverage
◦ Color depth
Temporal Resolution
Time of day/season/year
Spatial Resolution
Describes how much detail in a photographic image is visible to the
human eye.
The ability to “resolve”, or separate small details is one way of

describing what we call spatial resolution.
Spatial Resolution
Spectral Resolution
Describes the ability of a sensor to define fine wavelength intervals
The finer the spectral resolution, the narrower the wavelength range
for a particular channel or band
◦ Panchromatic
◦ Landsat-7 Pan, SPOT Pan, Worldview-2 Pan
◦ Multispectral
◦ Landsat, SPOT, MODIS
◦ Superspectral
◦ Worldview 3
◦ Hyperspectral
◦ Satellite: Hyperion
◦ Airborne, AVIRIS, CASI
Spectral Resolution
Spectral-Spatial Trade-off
Temporal Resolution
The ability to image exact same area for a number of times
Temporal Resolution
Revisit period for satellites – how often can you make a
measurement for the same area
◦ Landsat 16 days
◦ Quickbird – varies (point and shoot)
◦ MODIS – daily
◦ Airborne – collected as needed
Radiometric Resolution
Everytime an image is acquired by a sensor, its sensitivity to the
magnitude of the EM energy determines radiometric resolution.
The finer the radiometric resolution of a sensor, the more sensitive it

is to detecting small differences in reflected or emitted energy.
Radiometric Resolution
Imagery data are presented by positive digital numbers (DNs) which vary from 0 to a selected
number of power of 2.
The maximum number of brightness levels available

depends on the number of bits used in representing
the energy recorded.
If a sensor used 8 bits to record the data, there would

be 28 = 256 digital values available, ranging from 0 to 255
4 bit vs 8 bit image
Image Classification
The process of examining the attributes of each pixel in order to give the pixel a label identifying
it as belonging to a particular class of pixels of interest to the user
Three types of classification
Unsupervised
• No ground data is used during classification: classes are
determined purely on difference in spectral values
Supervised
• Requires “training pixels”, pixels where both the spectral values
and the class is known.
Hybrid
• Use unsupervised and supervised classification together
Unsupervised Classification
the objective is to group multi-band spectral response patterns into
clusters that are statistically separable
◦ K-means
◦ ISODATA (Iterative self-organising data analysis)
◦ Uses statistical parameters to combine/separate classes
K-Means
ISODATA
Supervised Classification
Uses training pixels to classify image

Geodesy 6 - Remote Sensing

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REMOTE SENSING PA MORE

Platform - the type of vehicle that supports or carries the sensor

The ability to “resolve”, or separate small details is one way of

The finer the radiometric resolution of a sensor, the more sensitive it

The maximum number of brightness levels available

If a sensor used 8 bits to record the data, there would

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