Module 5
Module 5
Class 37
Module 5
orbits Payloads
1. Passive sensors
Remote sensing satellites have 2. Active sensors
sun-synchronous subrecurrent
A passive system generally An active system, on the
orbits at altitudes of 700–900
consists of an array of other hand, emits
km, allowing them to observe
sensors or detectors that electromagnetic radiation
the same area periodically with a
record the amount of and measures the
periodicity of two to three
electromagnetic radiation intensity of the return
weeks.
reflected and/or emitted signal
from the Earth’s surface
Sensor Parameters
This is defined as the solid angle from which the
1. Instantaneous field-of-view (IFOV) electromagnetic radiation measured by the sensor at a
given point of time emanates
3. S/N ratio This defines the minimum power level required by the
sensor to identify an object in the presence of noise
Sensor Parameters
Swath width of the sensor is the area on the surface of
6. Swath width
the Earth imaged by it.
7. Dwell time The sensor’s dwell time is defined as the discrete amount
of time required by it to generate a strong enough signal
to be detected by the detector against the noise
The multispectral scanner (MSS) is the most commonly used passive scanning sensor
These include
Thus all the pixels are viewed from the same central
position in a manner similar to a photographic
camera.
Active Sensors
Types of Images
secondary images
Primary images
Polygenic images
natural colour composite images false colour composite images true colour composite images
In case of sensors not having one or If the spectral bands in the image In a true colour composite
more of the three visible bands, the do not correspond to the three image, the spectral bands
optical images lack these visual bands primary colours, then the resulting correspond to the three
image is called a false colour primary colours (R,G and B)
composite image
Image Classification
Image Interpretation
Extraction of useful information from the images is referred to as image interpretation
Interpreting Optical and Thermal Remote Sensing Images Interpreting Microwave Remote Sensing Images
1. Radiometric information suffer from a lot of noise, referred to as speckle
2. Spectral information noise may require special filtering before they can
3. Textural information be used for interpretation and analysis
4. Geometric and contextual information
The higher the value of the backscattering
Radiometric information corresponds to the coefficient, the rougher is the surface being
brightness, intensity and tone of the images imaged.
The geographic information system (GIS) is a computer based information system used to digitally
represent and analyze the geographic features present on the Earth’s surface
Flood Monitoring
Deforestation
Global Monitoring
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Class 38
Module 5
It is about predicting the weather, which can be both long term as well as
short term
long term predictions are made after understanding the weather patterns, on
the basis of observations made over a period of several years
The most commonly used band here is Another common type of satellite Weather satellites also
the visible band (0.4 to 0.9 micro imagery depicts the radiation utilize the microwave band,
m) emitted by the clouds and the mostly within the
Earth’s surface in the IR band (10 wavelength region from 0.1
Visible images represent the amount to 12 micro m). to 10 cm
of sunlight being reflected back into
space by clouds or the Earth’s surface IR images provide information on the Measurements in the
in the temperature of the underlying microwave band also help in
visible band. Earth’s surface or cloud cover. determination of quantities
such as snow cover,
This information is used in providing precipitation and
temperature forecasts, in locating thunderstorms
These images are mainly used in the areas of frost and freezes and in
identification of clouds determining the distribution of sea
surface temperatures offshore
Weather forecasting satellites are placed into either of the two types of orbits
geostationary orbit
Radiometer
A Radiometer is an instrument that makes quantitative measurements of
the amount of electromagnetic radiation incident on it from a given area
within a specified wavelength band
The radiometer comprises
optical system,
scanning system,
electronic system
calibration system
Radiometers can operate in one of two modes-vimaging mode and the sounding mode
Imagers measure and map sea-surface Sounder is a special kind of radiometer, which
temperatures, cloud-top temperatures and measures changes in the atmospheric temperature
land-surface temperatures due to change in water vapour content of the
atmosphere with height
Altimeter
Scatterometer
scatterometer is a microwave radar sensor used to measure the reflection or scattering
produced while scanning the surface of the Earth using microwave radiation
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is the most commonly used radar on weather forecasting
satellites
SAR is a special type of radar that uses the motion of the spacecraft to emulate a large
antenna from a physically small antenna.
It also sends microwave pulses and measures the intensity, time delay and frequency of
the return pulse.
Lidar
Lidar has the same principle of operation as that of a radar, except that it sends laser pulses
rather than microwave pulses.
Rainfall
Fog
Oceanography
Severe Storm Support
Fisheries
Snow and Ice Studies
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Class 39
Module 5
control segment
usersegment
Space Segment
The space segment comprises of a 28 satellite constellation out of
which 24 satellites are active satellites and the remaining four
satellites are used as in-orbit spares
The satellites are placed in six orbital planes, with four satellites
in each plane
The satellites orbit in circular medium The satellites orbit in circular
medium
The orbital period of each satellite is around 12 hours (11 hours, 58
mins)
All GPS satellites are equipped with atomic clocks having a very high
accuracy of the order of a few nanoseconds (3 ns in a second).
Control Segment
User Segment
The user segment includes all military and civil GPS receivers
intended to provide position, velocity and time information.
In the GPS, the position of any receiver is determined by calculating its distance from four
satellites
The information from three satellites is sufficient for calculating the longitude and the latitude
positions; however, information from the fourth satellite is necessary for altitude calculations
Hence, if the receiver is located on Earth, then its position can be determined on the basis of
information of its distance from three satellites
The pseudorandom code (PRN Ephemeris data contains Almanac data tells the GPS receiver
code) is an ID (identity) code information about health where each satellite should be at
that identifies which satellite is of the satellite, current any time during the day
transmitting information and is date and time
used for ‘pseudorange’ It also contains information on
calculations clock corrections and atmospheric
data parameters
All this information is transmitted at two microwave carrier frequencies, referred to as L1
(1575.42 MHz) and L2 (1227.60 MHz)
Pseudorange Measurements
where,
xn, yn, zn =x, y and z coordinates of the nth satellite
Ux,Uy,Uz =x, y and z coordinates of the user receiver
PRn = pseudorange of the user receiver from the nth
satellite
EC= error correction
There are two levels of GPS positioning and timing services, namely
The PPS, as the name suggests, SPS is less accurate than PPS and is
is the most precise and available to all users worldwide,
autonomous service and is authorized or unauthorized
accessible by authorized users
only
Positioning with GPS can be performed in either of the following two ways:
1. Point positioning
2.Relative positioning
Rescue operations
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Class 36
Module 5
END