A pod-based dual-beam SAR

A dual-beam along-track interferometric synthetic aperture radar that is entirely self-contained within an aircraft pod has been developed by the University of Massachusetts to study sea surface processes in coastal regions. The radar operates at 5.3 GHz with a bandwidth of up to 25 MHz. System hardware is described. Initial test flights aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's WP-3D research aircraft were performed to evaluate system performance over land and water surfaces. Imagery were collected for fore and aft squinted beams, though no interferometric data were collected. Notable look-angle dependences are observed in the sea surface normalized radar cross section under very low wind conditions.     

主被动多传感器组合的宽角成像系统设计与实验

按照国家航空应急测绘的需求提出了一种多传感器组合成像系统。在此系统中,将组合数码相机、视频和红外相机、激光雷达（light detection and ranging,LiDAR）和小型合成孔径雷达（miniature synthetic aperture radar,MiniSAR）集成到统一的时空基准,分别且同时地实现大像幅光学成像,白天和夜间视频影像获取与传输,三维激光点云获取,以及全天候的微波遥感。详细阐述了组合宽角相机在改善影像质量和作业效率方面的优势。根据上述设计,将实验系统安装在中航时无人机上进行了飞行检验,给出了所获取的白天和夜间数据成果。     

Flight test results from a strapdown airborne gravity system

In June 1995, a flight test was carried out over the Rocky Mountains to assess the accuracy of airborne gravity for geoid determination. The gravity system consisted of a strapdown inertial navigation system (INS), two GPS receivers with zero baseline on the airplane and multiple GPS master stations on the ground, and a data logging system. To the best of our knowledge, this was the first time that a strapdown INS has been used for airborne gravimetry. The test was designed to assess repeatability as well as accuracy of airborne gravimetry in a highly variable gravity field. An east-west profile of 250 km across the Rocky Mountains was chosen and four flights over the same ground track were made. The flying altitude was about 5.5km, i.e., between 2.5 and 5.0km above ground, and the average flying speed was about 430km/h. This corresponds to a spatial resolution (half wavelength of cutoff frequency) of 5.07.0km when using filter lengths between 90 and 120s. This resolution is sufficient for geoid determination, but may not satisfy other applications of airborne gravimetry. The evaluation of the internal and external accuracy is based on repeated flights and comparison with upward continued ground gravity using a detailed terrain model. Gravity results from repeated flight lines show that the standard deviation between flights is about 2mGal for a single profile and a filter length of 120s, and about 3mGal for a filter length of 90s. The standard deviation of the difference between airborne gravity upward continued ground gravity is about 3mGal for both filter lengths. A critical discussion of these results and how they relate to the different transfer functions applied, is given in the paper. Two different mathematical approaches to airborne scalar gravimetry are applied and compared, namely strapdown inertial scalar gravimetry (SISG) and rotation invariant scalar gravimetry (RISG). Results show a significantly better performance of the SISG approach for a strapdown INS of this accuracy class. Because of major differences in the error model of the two approaches, the RISG method can be used as an effective reliability check of the SISG method. A spectral analysis of the residual errors of the flight profiles indicates that a relative geoid accuracy of 23cm over distances of 200km (0.1 ppm) can be achieved by this method. Since these results present a first data analysis, it is expected that further improvements are possible as more refined modelling is applied. Received: 19 August 1996 / Accepted: 12 May 1997     

Wide-angle airborne laser range data analysis for relative height determination of ground-based benchmarks

 A wide-angle airborne laser ranging system has been developed for the determination of relative heights of ground-based benchmarks in regional-scale networks (typically 100 laser reflectors spread over 100 km²). A first prototype demonstrated a 1–2 mm accuracy in radial distance measurement in a ground-based experiment in 1995. The first aircraft experiment was conducted in 1998, over a small area (1 km²) equipped with a network of 64 benchmarks. The instrument was modified before that experiment, in order to minimize echo superimposition due to the high density of benchmarks. New data processing algorithms have been developed, for the deconvolution of strongly overlapped echoes and a high a priori uncertainty in the aircraft flight path, and for the estimation of benchmark coordinates. A special methodology has been developed for the parameterization of these algorithms and of outlier detection tests. From a total of 2×10⁴ pseudo-range measurements, that have been acquired from two flights composed of 30 legs each, only 3×10³ remain after outlier detection. A positioning accuracy of 1.5 cm in the vertical coordinate (2.1 cm in the difference between the two flights) has been achieved. It is shown that the errors are normally distributed, with a nearly zero mean, and are consistent with the a posteriori uncertainty. It is also shown that the accuracy is limited mainly by the sensitivity of the photodetector used for this experiment (due to reduced response time). Another limiting factor is the effect of aircraft attitude changes during the measurements, which produces additional uncertainties in absolute distance measurements. It is planned to test new photodetectors with high internal gains. These should provide, in future experiments with smaller benchmark density, an improvement in signal-to-noise ratio of a factor of 5–10, leading to sub-centimeter vertical positioning accuracy. Received: 19 June 2001 / Accepted: 3 January 2002     

联合对飞数据的单控制点机载干涉SAR定标算法

InSAR高精度高程测量要求在测绘区域人工布放大量定标器,一定程度上限制了其在地形测图领域的应用。本文提出一种联合对飞数据的单控制点机载干涉SAR定标算法。首先基于干涉测量基本原理构建了平面和高程三维定标模型,梳理了影响三维定位的特征参数;然后通过特征参数分离将三维定位模型维度降低到3个自由度,根据对飞同场景干涉图像对提取同名点,建立同名点高程测量定标约束方程,最终实现单控制点干涉参数定标。理论分析和机载对飞试验结果验证了算法的正确性和有效性。     

相向飞行全极化SAR图像对建筑物的立体重构

用多方向飞行的全极化SAR图像可能提取特定三维目标的高度与位置信息,进而实现目标物的几何立体重构。全极化SAR图像数据与单极化SAR相比,可以选择多种极化组合数据,提供对于特定目标几何特征敏感的数据类型,通过多方向飞行SAR图像反演该目标或目标群的高度与位置信息。本文用两幅相向飞行的PI-SAR(日本机载极化与干涉SAR,X波段、1.5m分辨率)图像,提取日本仙台电视塔高度、日本东北大学建筑物群的立体重构。     

Geostatistical modeling using LiDAR-derived prior knowledge with SPOT-6 data to estimate temperate forest canopy cover and above-ground biomass via stratified random sampling

Forest canopy cover (CC) and above-ground biomass (AGB) are important ecological indicators for forest monitoring and geoscience applications. This study aimed to estimate temperate forest CC and AGB by integrating airborne LiDAR data with wall-to-wall space-borne SPOT-6 data through geostatistical modeling. Our study involved the following approach: (1) reference maps of CC and AGB were derived from wall-to-wall LiDAR data and calibrated by field measurements; (2) twelve discrete LiDAR flights were simulated by assuming that LiDAR data were only available beneath these flights; (3) training/testing samples of CC and AGB were extracted from the reference maps inside and outside the simulated flights using stratified random sampling; (4) The simple linear regression, ordinary kriging and regression kriging model were used to extend the sparsely sampled CC/AGB data to the entire study area by incorporating a selection of SPOT-6 variables, including vegetation indices and texture variables. The regression kriging model was superior at estimating and mapping the spatial distribution of CC and AGB, as it featured the lowest mean absolute error (MAE; 11.295% and 18.929 t/ha for CC and AGB, respectively) and root mean squared error (RMSE; 17.361% and 21.351 t/ha for CC and AGB, respectively). The predicted and reference values of both CC and AGB were highly correlated for the entire study area based on the estimation histograms and error maps. Finally, we concluded that the regression kriging model was superior and more effective at estimating LiDAR-derived CC and AGB values using the spatially-reduced samples and the SPOT-6 variables. The presented modeling workflow will greatly facilitate future forest growth monitoring and carbon stock assessments for large areas of temperate forest in northeast China. It also provides guidance on how to take full advantage of future sparsely collected LiDAR data in cases where wall-to-wall LiDAR coverage is not available from the perspective of geostatistics.     

Assessment of long-range kinematic GPS positioning errors by comparison with airborne laser altimetry and satellite altimetry

Long-range airborne laser altimetry and laser scanning (LIDAR) or airborne gravity surveys in, for example, polar or oceanic areas require airborne kinematic GPS baselines of many hundreds of kilometers in length. In such instances, with the complications of ionospheric biases, it can be a real challenge for traditional differential kinematic GPS software to obtain reasonable solutions. In this paper, we will describe attempts to validate an implementation of the precise point positioning (PPP) technique on an aircraft without the use of a local GPS reference station. We will compare PPP solutions with other conventional GPS solutions, as well as with independent data by comparison of airborne laser data with “ground truth” heights. The comparisons involve two flights: A July 5, 2003, airborne laser flight line across the North Atlantic from Iceland to Scotland, and a May 24, 2004, flight in an area of the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland, near-coincident in time and space with the ICESat satellite laser altimeter. Both of these flights were more than 800 km long. Comparisons between different GPS methods and four different software packages do not suggest a clear preference for any one, with the heights generally showing decimeter-level agreement. For the comparison with the independent ICESat- and LIDAR-derived “ground truth” of ocean or sea-ice heights, the statistics of comparison show a typical fit of around 10 cm RMS in the North Atlantic, and 30 cm in the sea-ice region north of Greenland. Part of the latter 30 cm error is likely due to errors in the airborne LIDAR measurement and calibration, as well as errors in the “ground truth” ocean surfaces due to drifting sea-ice. Nevertheless, the potential of the PPP method for generating 10 cm level kinematic height positioning over long baselines is illustrated.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN INEXPENSIVE RETRACTABLE VERTICAL CAMERA RIG FOR A LIGHT AIRCRAFT

The development and operation of an inexpensive retractable vertical camera rig is described. Unlike several commercially available camera packages, the cameras on this rig are accesible in flight thus permitting the changing of magazines and other operations. Since the camera carriage is only deployed when over the site to be photographed, the aircraft performance is not degraded during positioning flights.     

A comparison and analysis of airborne gravimetry results from two strapdown inertial/DGPS systems

In September 1996 the University of Calgary tested a combination of strapdown inertial navigation systems and differential global positioning system (DGPS) receivers for their suitability to determine gravity at aircraft flying altitudes. The purpose of this test was to investigate the long-term accuracy and repeatability of the system, as well as its potential for geoid and vertical gradient of gravity determination. The test took place during a 3-day period in the Canadian Rocky Mountains over a single 100 × 100 km area which was flown with 10-km line spacing. Two flights were done at 4350 m in E–W and N–S profile directions, respectively, and one at 7300 m with E–W profiles. Two strapdown inertial systems, the Honeywell LASEREF III and the Litton-101 Flagship, were flown side by side. Comparison of the system estimates with an upward-continued reference showed root-mean-square (RMS) agreement at the level of 3.5 mGal for 90- and 120-s filter lengths. The LASEREF III, however, performed significantly better than the Litton 101 for shorter filtering periods of 30 and 60 s. A comparison between the two systems results in an RMS agreement of 2.8 and 2.3 mGal for the 90- and 120-s filters. The better agreement between the two systems is mainly due to the fact that the upward-continued reference has not been filtered identically to the system gravity disturbance estimates. Additional low-frequency differences seem to point to an error in the upward-continued reference. Finally, an analysis of crossover points between flight days for the LASEREF III shows a standard deviation of 1.6 mGal, which is near the noise level of the INS and GPS data. Further improvements to the system are possible, and some ideas for future work are briefly presented. Received: 17 March 1998 / Accepted: 1 February 1999     

River dike deformation measurement with airborne SAR

Due to extremely high water levels or extremely dry periods, river dikes can deform and eventually burst. The deformation can be measured with repeat-pass synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry. Two flights (5.5-day interval) with an airborne C-band SAR were carried out to verify a particular case. During the second flight, the dike was deliberately deformed. Interferogram analyses showed that the dike deformed by at most 2 mm on this day, in approximate agreement with tachymeter measurements. Corner reflector analysis showed a deformation of about 1 cm during the 5.5-day interval, in good agreement with ground measurements.     

Progress in the Development of a High Performance Airborne Digital Sensor

Joint development work by LH Systems and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (German Aerospace Center) has produced encouraging results using forward, nadir and backward looking linear arrays on the focal plane to provide panchromatic imagery and geometric information, supplemented by further arrays to acquire multispectral imagery suitable for both high precision photogrammetric mapping and image processing for interpretative purposes. The geometric characteristics of line scanner imagery necessitate line-by-line rectification for aircraft tilts and shifts. Satisfactory execution of this process is enhanced by using supplementary data from high performance, on-board GPS and inertial measurement systems. Similarly, high demands are placed on other sub-systems, such as the camera mount, lens, electronics and storage technology. In addition to rectification for aircraft tilts and shifts, rectification for terrain characteristics is also required in order to generate colour and false colour composite images, since the various multispectral arrays are in different places on the focal plane. The special geometry affects triangulation. Thereafter, the imagery can be processed using existing software packages from both photogrammetry and remote sensing.
The concept has been demonstrated in several successful test flights and the production model is scheduled for market introduction at the ISPRS Congress in July 2000. The imagery from the new sensor will fulfil many market requirements between the highest resolution film imagery (<0.1 m) and high resolution space imagery (1m to 10 m). The sensor's unique blend of multispectral information with high quality geometric information will give rise to numerous new applications.     

机载SAR交向立体模式及定位方法研究

为了充分使用构架或受限飞行时获取的交向影像,本文对机载SAR交向立体模式及定位方法进行了研究。首先,简要比较了三种利用SAR影像提取DEM的方法,分析了机载雷达立体测量的意义。其次,研究了SAR交向立体获取方式及所获取立体影像对的特点。最后,应用两种立体定位模型,即距离-多普勒模型和多项式正射校正模型,对陕西某地1m分辨率SAR影像对进行了实验分析,取得了较好的定位精度。     

A new machine learning paradigm for terrain reconstruction

Terrain models that permit multiresolution access are essential for model predictive control of unmanned aerial vehicles in low-level flights. The authors present the extreme learning machine (ELM), a recently proposed learning paradigm, as a mechanism for learning the stored digital elevation information to allow multiresolution access. We give results of simulations designed to compare the performance of our approach with two other approaches for multiresolution access, namely: 1) linear interpolation on Delaunay triangles of the sampled terrain data points and 2) terrain learning using support vector machines (SVMs). The results show that to achieve the same mean square error during access, the memory needed in our approach is significantly lower. Additionally, the offline training time for the ELM network is much less than that for the SVM.     

GPS/INS navigation precision and its effect on airborne radio occultation retrieval accuracy

An airborne radio occultation (RO) system has been developed to retrieve atmospheric profiles of refractivity, moisture, and temperature. The long-term objective of such a system is deployment on commercial aircraft to increase the quantity of moisture observations in flight corridors in order to improve weather forecast accuracy. However, there are several factors important to operational feasibility that have an impact on the accuracy of the airborne RO results. We investigate the effects of different types of navigation system noise on the precision of the retrieved atmospheric profiles using recordings from the GNSS Instrument System for Multistatic and Occultation Sensing (GISMOS) test flights, which used an Applanix POS/AV 510 Global Positioning System (GPS)/Inertial Navigation System (INS). The data were processed using a carrier phase differential GPS technique, and then the GPS position and inertial measurement unit data were combined in a loosely coupled integrated inertial navigation solution. This study quantifies the velocity precision as a function of distance from GPS reference network sites, the velocity precision with or without an inertial measurement unit, the impact of the quality of the inertial measurement unit, and the compromise in precision resulting from the use of real-time autonomous GPS positioning. We find that using reference stations with baseline lengths of up to 760?km from the survey area has a negligible impact on the retrieved refractivity precision. We also find that only a small bias (less than 0.5% in refractivity) results from the use of an autonomous GPS solution rather than a post-processed differential solution when used in an integrated GPS/INS system. This greatly expands the potential range of an operational airborne radio occultation system, particularly over the oceans, where observations are sparse.     

无人直升机摄影测量系统的设计与验证

针对目前已有的无人机摄影测量系统存在的精度不高、依赖起降场地、续航能力差等问题,设计并实现了无人直升机摄影测量系统,该系统将Phase相机、Applanix POS设备集成在3轴稳定对地观测吊舱内,具有垂直起降、载荷量大、续航能力强、测量精度高等优势。在嵩山遥感定标场开展了测试飞行,结果表明：系统直接地理定位精度较高,可用于应急测图;在少量控制点参与下,系统定位精度远优于1∶500测图要求,可用于大比例尺测图,具有重要的推广应用价值。     

AN OVERVIEW OF GEOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS CARRIED OUT ON BOARD MANNED SPACECRAFT AND SPACE STATIONS

An introductory paper to a series of articles on geological applications of remote sensing imagery produced from manned space flights chronicles a progression in research from the simple identification of geomorphological complexes during space flight to specific programs of observation and hand-held photography on board orbiting space stations. The coverage is primarily devoted to Soviet achievements over the period 1961–1982, especially to work conducted on board the space stations Salyut-5 through Salyut-7. Translated by Jay K. Mitchell, PlanEcon, Inc., Washington, DC 20005 from: B. M. Zubarev, V. V. Kozlov, and V. V. Lebedev, Kosmonavty issleduyut Zemlyu [Cosmonauts Study the Earth]. Moscow: Nauka, 1991, pp. 37–41.     

Estimating chlorophyll with thermal and broadband multispectral high resolution imagery from an unmanned aerial system using relevance vector machines for precision agriculture

Precision agriculture requires high-resolution information to enable greater precision in the management of inputs to production. Actionable information about crop and field status must be acquired at high spatial resolution and at a temporal frequency appropriate for timely responses. In this study, high spatial resolution imagery was obtained through the use of a small, unmanned aerial system called AggieAir^TM. Simultaneously with the AggieAir flights, intensive ground sampling for plant chlorophyll was conducted at precisely determined locations. This study reports the application of a relevance vector machine coupled with cross validation and backward elimination to a dataset composed of reflectance from high-resolution multi-spectral imagery (VIS–NIR), thermal infrared imagery, and vegetative indices, in conjunction with in situ SPAD measurements from which chlorophyll concentrations were derived, to estimate chlorophyll concentration from remotely sensed data at 15-cm resolution. The results indicate that a relevance vector machine with a thin plate spline kernel type and kernel width of 5.4, having LAI, NDVI, thermal and red bands as the selected set of inputs, can be used to spatially estimate chlorophyll concentration with a root-mean-squared-error of 5.31 μg cm⁻², efficiency of 0.76, and 9 relevance vectors.     

A comparison of stable platform and strapdown airborne gravity

To date, operational airborne gravity results have been obtained using either a damped two-axis stable platform gravimeter system such as the LaCoste and Romberg (LCR) S-model marine gravimeter or a strapdown inertial navigation system (INS), showing comparable accuracies. In June 1998 three flight tests were undertaken which tested an LCR gravimeter and a strapdown INS gravity system side by side. To the authors' knowledge, this was the first time such a comparison flight was undertaken. The flights occurred in Disko Bay, off the west coast of Greenland. Several of the flight lines were partly flown along existing shipborne gravity profiles to allow for an independent source of comparison of the results. The results and analysis of these flight tests are presented. The measurement method and error models for both the stable platform and strapdown INS gravity systems are presented and contrasted. An intercomparison of gravity estimates from both systems is given, along with a comparison of the individual estimates with existing shipborne gravity profiles. The results of the flight tests show that the gravity estimates from the two systems agree at the 2–3 mGal level, after the removal of a linear bias. This is near the combined noise level of the two systems. It appears that a combination of both systems would provide an ideal airborne gravity survey system, combining the excellent bias stability of the LCR gravimeter with the higher dynamic range and increased spatial resolution of the strapdown INS. Received: 3 June 1999 / Accepted: 30 November 1999     

First 2-D Interferometric Radiometer Imaging of the Earth From an Aircraft

The Helsinki University of Technology has recently finished the construction of a 2-D airborne aperture synthesis radiometer and conducted a successful test flight with the complete instrument. During the test flight, a number of different brightness temperature sources were measured to examine the instrument's stability, electromagnetic compatibility issues, calibration methods, and image reconstruction algorithm. A set of images from this first test flight is presented, and their main features are discussed