THE EFFICIENCY OF MONITORING THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH THROUGH THE CUMULUS CLOUDINESS LAYER

Abstract

The effectiveness of monitoring the underlying surface (US) during its passive remote sensing in the optical wavelength range from an aircraft is estimated. It is supposed that the monitoring is carried out in the conditions of a Cumulus cloudiness which partially closes US. An on-board optical-electronic system has the ability to deviate from the vertical of a narrow field of view. By controlling the position of the field of view, the ECO forms inclined optical paths. In the presence of gaps between the Cumulus clouds under the aircraft inclined optical paths provide the possibility of optical contact with fragments of US. The key problem in assessing the effectiveness of such monitoring is to determine the probability of sighting the US through a cloud layer along inclined paths. The probability of sighting depends on such parameters as the degree of sky coverage, the angle of deflection of the line-of-sight from the vertical, and the geometric parameters of the 3D cloud shapes (horizontal extent, section height, distance between the cloud section edges). As a result of modeling, the dependences of this probability on various combinations of parameters of cumulus clouds are obtained. This allows you to determine the guaranteed probability and the bandwidth of US monitoring for various cloud parameters, altitude of the aircraft and clouds. The obtained dependences of the probability of sighting US on the angles of orientation of the field of view in conditions of cumulus clouds can be used as input data to estimate the probability of detecting objects on the US when they are accompanied during the flight.