A Flight Direction Design Method for Airborne Spectral Imaging Considering the Anisotropy Reflectance of the Target...

Area of Science:

• Remote Sensing
• Geophysics
• Environmental Science

Background:

• High-quality airborne hyperspectral images are crucial for environmental research and mining.
• Minimizing radiance non-uniformity is key, often achieved by aligning flight paths with solar azimuth for whiskbroom and pushbroom imagers.
• Radiance is influenced by target reflectance, terrain, illumination, and observation angles, complicating optimal flight path determination.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze terrain's impact on radiation non-uniformity in hyperspectral imaging.
• To develop a flight direction design method for composite sloping terrain.
• To minimize radiance non-uniformity for improved airborne hyperspectral data acquisition.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of radiative transfer processes to understand terrain effects on radiation non-uniformity.
• Proposal of a novel flight direction design method tailored for composite sloping terrain.
• Validation through digital and physical simulation experiments.

Main Results:

• The study identified terrain as a significant factor affecting radiation non-uniformity.
• A new flight direction design method was proposed and validated.
• Simulations confirmed that flying in the designated direction minimizes radiance non-uniformity.

Conclusions:

• Optimal flight direction for airborne hyperspectral imaging is terrain-dependent.
• The proposed method effectively minimizes radiance non-uniformity in rugged terrain.
• A comprehensive workflow for flight direction planning and optimization in remote sensing missions was established.