Title: Remote sensors for and sensing of urban areas: Current state and next decade
Abstract: The applications of remote sensing technology have been focused on environmental issues and natural resources. Coarse- and medium-resolution optical and radar imagery has limited usage in urban areas. At the turn of the 21st century, we have witnessed great advances in remote sensing and imaging science. Commercial satellites acquire imagery at a spatial resolution previously only possible to aerial platforms, but these satellites have advantages over aerial imageries including their capacity for synoptic coverage, inherently digital format, short revisit time, and capability to produce stereo image pairs conveniently for high-accuracy 3D mapping thanks to their flexible pointing mechanism. Hyperspectral imaging affords the potential for detailed identification of materials and better estimates of their abundance in the Earth's surface, enabling the use of remote sensing data collection to replace data collection that was formerly limited to laboratory testing or expensive field surveys. Lidar (Light Detection and Rangng) technology can provide high-accuracy height and other geometric information for urban structures and vegetation. In addition, radar technology has been re-inventing itself since the 1990s, due largely to the increase of spaceborne radar programs. These technologies are not isolated at all. In fact, their integrated uses with more established aerial photography and multispectral remote sensing techniques have been the main stream of current remote sensing research and applications. With the advent of the new sensor technology, the reinvention of “old” technology, and more capable computational techniques, the field of remote sensing and Earth observation is rapidly gaining, or regaining, interest in the geospatial technology community, governments, industries and the general public. The integration of the internet technology with remote sensing imaging science and GIS have led to the emergence of geo-referenced information over the web, such as Google Earth and Virtual Globe. These new geo-referenced “worlds”, in conjunction with GPS, mobile mapping, and modern telecommunication technologies, have sparked much interest in the public for remote sensing and imaging science (Weng, 2012). Within this context, urban remote sensing has become a new frontier in geospatial technology. This trend has been demonstrated by rapidly increasing publications on the topic and its widespread applications.
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-07-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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