Airborne remote sensing instrumentation for the National Ecological Observatory Network

NEON, Inc.Airborne Observation Platform1685 38th St Suite 100Boulder, CO 80301

Joel McCorkelMichele KuesterBrian JohnsonTom KampeKeith Krause

JACIE 2011 – Boulder, CO

NEON’s mission is to enable understanding and forecasting of climate change, land use change, and invasive species on continental-scale ecology -- by

providing infrastructure and consistent methodologies to support research and education in these areas.

• Information infrastructure: Consistent, continental, long-term, multi-scaled data sets that serve as a context for research and education. All data free and openly available.

• Physical Infrastructure: A research platform for investigator-initiated experiments, new sensors and observations at NEON sites.

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1. Biodiversity

2. Biogeochemical cycles

3. Climate change

4. Ecohydrology

5. Infectious disease

6. Land use

7. Invasive Species

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NEON groups

Airborne remote

sensing (AOP)Biological

sampling (FSU)

Flux towers (FIU)

Satellite remote

sensing (LUAP)

Aquatics and Stream

Experiment (STREON)

Cyber infrastructure (CI)

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Civil science

NEON’s 60 sites in 20 Domains

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NEON scaling Strategy

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Talk summary

• NEON mission

• Airborne package

– Imaging spectrometer

– Operations

– Calibration plan

• Pathfinder Flight 2010 with AVIRIS

– Airborne data

– Ground data

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Role of Airborne Remote Sensing

• AOP will observe invasive species, land use drivers and ecosystem responses surrounding the NEON Core and Re-locatable sites– land cover

– vegetation structure

– Invasive plant species

– biochemical and biophysical properties

– ecosystem functioning

• Bridge scales from organism and stand scales to the scale of satellite based remote sensing (e.g. meter-scale)

• Observe targets of opportunity (e.g. PI-science, wildfires)

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Airborne Operations

2 aircraft with identical payloads to cover sites

7-months, 1,100 flight hrs flight season

3rd Payload for backup & new science, targets of opportunity

Preseason calibration flights

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Airborne Observation Platform

Imaging Spectrometer

JPL

Waveform lidarOptech ALTM Gemini system

Applanix GPS/IMU

High-resolution

digital cameraApplanix digital airborne camera

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Neon Imaging Spectrometer

Design Verification Unit (DVU)

• Pushbroom imaging spectrometer

• Spectral range: 380 – 2510 nm

• Spectral sampling: 5 ± 0.5 nm

• FOV: 34 ± 1 degrees

• IFOV: 1 ± 0.1 mrad

• Radiometric sampling: 14 bit

• Crosstrack swath: 1 km @ 1 km AGL

• Spectral-cross-track uniformity: >95% uniformity

• Spectral-IFOV: > 95% uniformity

• Configuration: Two-mirror off-axis telescope, single Offnerspectrometer with multi-blaze grating, mechanical coolers

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Status of Airborne Observation Platform

2010

Design & development

Construction & commissioning

2011 20122009

PDRFDR

2008

Design studySpectrometer #1

Spectrometer #2 Start

construction

Airborne

Platform

development

NEON

Project

2013 2014 2015 2015

Design

Verification

Unit delivery

Pathfinder

Flight w/ AVIRIS

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DVU Development status

NEON

January 13, 2011 JPL NISDVU MMR 29

Backplate Assembly

Spectrometer AlignmentOperator Rack ECS Rack

NEON

January 13, 2011 JPL NISDVU MMR 29

Backplate Assembly

Spectrometer AlignmentOperator Rack ECS Rack

NEON

January 13, 2011 JPL NISDVU MMR 29

Backplate Assembly

Spectrometer AlignmentOperator Rack ECS Rack

NEON

January 13, 2011 JPL NISDVU MMR 29

Backplate Assembly

Spectrometer AlignmentOperator Rack ECS Rack

• 2008-Dec Completed JPL conceptual design

study & early risk reduction tasks

• 2009-Feb Subsystem design reviews

• 2009-Oct – 2012-Apr

• Spectrometer design verification unit

(DVU)

• Prototype algorithms

• Flight campaigns (inc. 2010 pathfinder)

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Calibration timeline for airborne platform

Pre flight

season

laboratory

characterization

at NEON HQ in

Boulder, CO

Flight season characterization:

-On-board calibrator

-Known test sites

-Solar radiation based

calibration

Pre flight season

operational test.

Coincident

measurements of:

-3 airborne platforms

-Satellite sensors

-Ground-based

reflectance and

atmosphere

Winter Spring Fall

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Calibration Facility – Spectral

Monochromator Rare gas spectra

Laserbank

Laser sphere

SRM 2065 - Ultraviolet-

Visible-Near-Infrared

Transmission

Wavelength/Vacuum

Wavenumber Standard

SR

M2

06

5

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Calibration Facility – Radiometric

NIST irradiance standard Integrating-sphere source

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39045C

NEON Pathfinder Mission 2010

NEON Domain 3 core site: Ordway-Swisher Biological Station, Florida

Prototype to incorporate multiple NEON data-streams to

– Develop scaling strategies

– Ground-truth airborne measurements

Field sampling measurements– Tree diversity

– Vegetation structure

– Leaf Area Index (LAI)

Airborne measurements– Imaging spectroscopy

– Waveform lidar

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Pathfinder 2010 photos

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Pathfinder 2010 – Imaging Spectrometer

4 September 2010

AVIRIS

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Pathfinder 2010 –Waveform lidar

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Lidar

Lidar first return

AVIRIS31 March 2011 JACIE 2011 21

Leaf Area Index data

Ordway-Swisher tower airshed LAI transects

Easting (UTM)

No

rth

ing

(UTM

)

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EO-1 on September 3, 2010

Hyperion = pink footprint

Advanced Land Imager = yellow footprint

Campaign area = Black outline

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Radiometric Cal site - Landsat 5 TM

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AVIRIS and ground spectra

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0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

13:40 14:00 14:20 14:40 15:00 15:20 15:40 16:00

AOT 500 nm on Sept 4, 2010 at OSBS

Measurements for vicarious calibration

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

14:40 15:00 15:20 15:40 16:00 16:20

AOT 500 nm on Sept 2, 2010 at GNV

Ordway Test Site

Gainsville Airport Test Site

AVIRIS on 4 Sept 2010

AVIRIS on 2 Sept 2010

0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

350 1350 2350

Wavelength (nm)

GNV airport reflectance

0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

350 1350 2350

Wavelength (nm)

OSBS veg cal target reflectance

Ground reflectanceAtmospheric

characterization

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Summary

• NEON airborne remote sensing will provide a remote sensing capability beyond existing systems in its ability to produce quantitative information about ecosystems drivers and responses with annual coverage

• Airborne instrumentation will provide sub-meter/meter scale measurements to bridge scales from organism and stand scales to the regional scale

• NEON data system will enable free and open exchange of scientific information from the Observatory

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• BACKUP / DELETED SLIDES

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Airborne System Description

spectrometer

LiDAR

camera

Payload Integration Mount (PIM)

• Three airborne remote sensing

payloads

– Imaging spectrometer

– Waveform lidar

– High-resolution camera

– GPS-Inertial measurement unit

• Leased Twin Otter aircraft

• Instrument maintenance and

calibration facility

• Science and flight operations

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