Abstract
In order to retrieve results comparable under different flight parameters and among different flight campaigns, passive remote sensing data such as hyperspectral imagery need to undergo a radiometric calibration. While this calibration, aiming at the derivation of physically meaningful surface attributes such as a reflectance value, is quite cumbersome for passively sensed data and relies on a number of external parameters, the situation is by far less complicated for active remote sensing techniques such as lidar. This fact motivates the investigation of the suitability of full-waveform lidar as a “single-wavelength reflectometer” to support radiometric calibration of hyperspectral imagery. In this paper, this suitability was investigated by means of an airborne hyperspectral imagery campaign and an airborne lidar campaign recorded over the same area. Criteria are given to assess diffuse reflectance behaviour; the distribution of reflectance derived by the two techniques were found comparable in four test areas where these criteria were met. This is a promising result especially in the context of current developments of multi-spectral lidar systems.
Highlights
Commercial full-waveform lidar systems have become ever increasingly available and used for the production of high-resolution 3D topographic information in the past decade
We present a method for validating the lidar-derived diffuse surface reflectance and and its comparison to according values calculated from hyperspectral imagery (HSI) data
Test area 4 exhibited a noticeable decrease in both median and σMAD of the lidar reflectances for increasing minimum echo ratio; this effect was less prominent in the HSI reflectances
Summary
Commercial full-waveform lidar systems have become ever increasingly available and used for the production of high-resolution 3D topographic information in the past decade. Full-waveform lidar inherits the possibility of assigning physically meaningful target attributes, e.g. the backscatter cross-section or a diffuse-reflectance value, to the resulting 3D point cloud in the same spatial resolution. This allows for the derivation of quantities comparable for different sensors, emitted laser energies, other flight-campaign parameters and acquisition dates. The aforementioned lidar-derived surface attributes, especially diffuse reflectance, may serve as a radiometric input for calibrating hyperspectral data in an according wavelength domain, acting as a “single-wavelength reflectometer” in an area-wide sense. The hypothesis is evaluated by means of an extended fullwaveform lidar campaign and an HSI campaign, both recorded over the Lägern area, located northwest of Zurich, Switzerland
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