High-Altitude Laser Altimetry from the Global Hawk UAV for Regional Mapping of Surface Topography
Abstract
NASA's Land, Vegetation, and Ice Sensor (LVIS) is a high-altitude, full-waveform, geodetic-imaging laser altimeter system of which a UAV-based version (LVIS-GH) is currently being tested. From 20 km above the surface in the Global Hawk UAV, LVIS-GH images surface topography and roughness (including forest height) across a 4 km wide swath using 15 m diameter footprints. In recent years, the LVIS has been flown at altitudes of up to 14 km over Greenland and Antarctica on flights up to 12 hours in duration, enabling the efficient and precise mapping of large areas from the air. The Global Hawk will extend this capability to up to 32 hours and altitudes approaching 20 km. In order to achieve decimeter level vertical precision and accuracy from high altitude, advanced parameter estimation techniques, based on those implemented in NASA's GEODYN software, are used to estimate the angular, spatial, and temporal biases required to accurately georeference the component lidar data sets. Data from specific in-air maneuvers are utilized in order to isolate the effects of different error sources and to break correlations between biases. Examples of high-altitude data and airborne/spaceborne sensor intercomparison and fusion will be shown. For example, the comparison of data from NASA's ICESat-1 mission with coincident LVIS data collected around 86S (the maximum extent of data collected during ICESat) to quantify inter-campaign biases in Icesat-1 elevation measurements and improve estimates of long -term elevation change rates of ice sheets will be shown. These results illustrate the utility of high-altitude wide swath imaging, particularly from platforms such as the Global-Hawk, for enhancing spacebased data sets.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFM.G23A0885B
- Keywords:
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- 0758 CRYOSPHERE / Remote sensing;
- 0794 CRYOSPHERE / Instruments and techniques;
- 1294 GEODESY AND GRAVITY / Instruments and techniques;
- 1640 GLOBAL CHANGE / Remote sensing