A South African Satellite Bus for Multi-Angular Mapping of Steep Terrain Classification
- Paper number
IAC-07-B4.1.05
- Author
Dr. Ray Merton, University of New South Wales, Australia
- Coauthor
Mr. Alastair Fitzmaurice, University of New South Wales, Australia
- Coauthor
Mr. Herman Steyn, South Africa
- Year
2007
- Abstract
This overview of ongoing research examines a new technique for implementation in anticipation of increasing and future deployments of multi-angular hyperspectral satellite systems and the satellite bus agility required to support the multi-angular acquisition. Mountainous areas in developing countries are less explored and mapped. The analysis of nadir imagery from Earth observation satellites continues to be problematic over areas of steep and mountainous terrain. Vertical and near-vertical mountain faces in particular cannot be effectively mapped for snow cover, vegetation, or geological applications due to the shallow incidence angles of observation. On these slopes, any pixels that can be imaged will always represent disproportionately large ground surface areas, inherently containing spectrally mixed and spatially distorted pixels. This technique uses both the along-track and off-nadir viewing capability of CHRIS/Proba to demonstrate the advantages of merging multi-angular observations into hybrid datasets for topographic normalisation mapping specifically for future MSMISat hyperspectral acquisitions. The agility requirements of the satellite platform will be reviewed in the context of the performance of the SunSpace small satellite bus product family.
- Abstract document