Showing posts with label Thermal Remote Sensing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thermal Remote Sensing. Show all posts

Monday 9 December 2013

Hyperspectral Remote Sensing

The advances in remote sensing and geographic information that made the way for the development of Hyperspectral remote Sensors. Imagery Spectroscopy is also known as Hyperspectral Remote Sensing and it is a new technology that is presently being investigated by scientists and researchers and it would deal with the detection and identification of minerals, vegetation, man-made materials and backgrounds. It combines imaging and spectroscopy in one system and it often includes large data sets and require new processing methods.


Like other spectral imaging, Hyper Spectral imaging collects and processes information from across the electromagnetic spectrum. Unlike the human eye that can see the visible light in three bands(red, blue & green), spectral imaging divides the spectrum into more bands. The technique of diving images into bands that can be extended beyond the visible region.

Hyperspectral Remote Sensing makes use of Hyperspectral Sensors. The sensors collect information as a set of images, where each image represents a range of electromagnetic spectrum and is also called spectral band. All of these images are further collected and integrated to form a three-dimensional hyperspectral cube for the purpose of processing and analysis.

The precision of these sensors is typically measured in spectral resolution, which is the width of each band of the spectrum that has been captured. It is possible that the senors might detect a large number of fairy narrow frequency bands giving the possibility to identify objects even if they are captured in a handful of pixels.

Spatial Resolution is a factor in addition to Spectral Resolution. If the pixels are sufficiently large then multiple objects are captured in the same pixel and it becomes difficult to identify each of them. Also if the pixels are too small, then the energy that is captured in each sensor cell is quite low and the decreased signal-to-noise ratio reduces the reliability of measured features.

The acquisition and refining of hyperspectral images is also referred to as imaging spectroscopy.

Applications:

There are a few scenarios that make use of Hyperspectral Remote Sensing.

  • Biomass burning: subpixel temperatures, smoke
  • Atmosphere: cloud properties, water vapor, aerosols
  • Snow/Ice: snow cover fraction, melting
  • Geology: minerals and soil type
  • Commercial: agriculture, forest production and mineral exploration

More Knowledge Contact :- GeoSpatial Consulting Services

Saturday 30 November 2013

Thermal Remote Sensing


Thermal Remote Sensing is described as the acquisition of image data in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It uses the radiations that are emitted by the surface itself. Thermal infrared is emitted energy that is sensed digitally. Thermal remote sensing is used on areas to assess the heat island, to perform land cover classifications and as an input for models of urban surface atmosphere exchange. Thermal Remote Sensing is a special case of reserving land surface temperature which varies in accordance to the surface energy balance.


Thermal data are usually acquired in sequences, where the first image is taken at night and the second is taken during the day. The image that is taken at night is used to monitor the raw emission of the surface and the second image that is taken during the day is used to see what part of incident shortware solar radiation is transformed to thermal radiation and then emitted to the surface.

This principle is used quite often in geological applications and we can study the presence of different rocks based on their thermal capacity. Whereas the domain of visible and near infrared (VNIR) radiation is suitable for monitoring the presence of metallic minerals such as hematite, the shortwave infrared domain (SWIR) is used for the detection of minerals containing OH- functional group. But none of these domains is suitable for observing the major constituents of igneous rocks, silica and feldspar.

In addition to the geological applications, Thermal Remote Sensing image data can be used for :

  • Studying the transformation of shortware solar radiation into longware thermal radiation and and evapo transpiration in the case of vegetation.
  • Detection of heat loss in buildings
  • Detection of the damages of steam pipelines and caliduct
  • Detection of the subsurface fires

More Knowledge Contact :- Spatial IT Solutions