Evaluation of Small-Footprint Full-Waveform Airborne Lidar Instrument Requirements Using DIRSIG Simulations of Forests

摘要

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) provides long-term, quantitative information on land use, vegetation structure and canopy chemistry over the NEON sites. AOP flies a suite of integrated remote sensing instruments consisting of a hyperspectral imager, a waveform lidar, and a color digital camera. Small-footprint full-waveform airborne lidar provides an enhanced capability beyond discrete return lidar for capturing and characterizing canopy structure. Due to high data rates/volumes, a common practice is to truncate waveforms. Very little research exists to determine how much data should be saved. In this study, simulations are run in Rochester Institute of Technology's DIRSIG software. The resulting output waveforms are analyzed to assess three lidar system requirements: the total number of bins with a detected signal, the number of segments, and the max number of bins in a single segment. Recommendations for the values of these requirements are provided.