scholarly journals Mosaicking Opportunistically Acquired Very High-Resolution Helicopter-Borne Images over Drifting Sea Ice Using COTS Sensors

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 1251
Author(s):  
Chang-Uk Hyun ◽  
Joo-Hong Kim ◽  
Hyangsun Han ◽  
Hyun-cheol Kim

Observing sea ice by very high-resolution (VHR) images not only improves the quality of lower-resolution remote sensing products (e.g., sea ice concentration, distribution of melt ponds and pressure ridges, sea ice surface roughness, etc.) by providing details on the ground truth of sea ice, but also assists sea ice fieldwork. In this study, two fieldwork-based methods are proposed, one for the practical acquisition of VHR images over drifting Arctic sea ice using low-cost commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) sensors equipped on a helicopter, and the other for quantifying the compensating effect from continuously drifting sea ice that reduces geolocation uncertainty in the image mosaicking procedure. The drifting trajectory of the target ice was yielded from that recorded by an icebreaker that was tightly anchored to the floe and was then used to reversely compensate the locations of acquired VHR images. After applying the compensation, three-dimensional geolocation errors of the VHR images were decreased by 79.3% and 24.2% for two pre-defined image groups, respectively. The enhanced accuracy of the imaging locations was affected by imaging duration causing variable drifting distances of individual images. Further applicability of the mosaicked VHR image was discussed by comparing it with a TerraSAR-X synthetic aperture radar image containing the target ice, suggesting that the proposed methods can be used for precise comparison with satellite remote sensing products.

Author(s):  
C. U. Hyun ◽  
H. C. Kim

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> In order to observe and record conditions of the sea ice efficiently and specifically during in-situ investigation with the support of icebreaker research vessel (IBRV), the very-high-resolution (VHR) imaging systems have been used in recent past. The VHR images are generally acquired lower altitude than cloud height, therefore, the images can be acquired even in unfavourable weather conditions for optical satellite image acquisition, and can be applied to comparison with various kinds of remote sensing datasets. However, producing mosaicked image using the VHR images have suffered from drift of sea ice. The sea ice drift interrupts simultaneous geotagging in overall study area as geographic locations of sea ice moves continuously; therefore, the mosaicked image generated from improperly geotagged individual image depicts a scene of ambiguous time. In this study, we present a case study of VHR sea ice image acquisition using a helicopter equipped with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) geotagging and imaging sensors with a support of IBRV Araon in East Siberian Sea, Arctic Ocean. We also propose an image mosaicking strategy using the improperly geotagged VHR images acquired over drifting sea ice to decrease temporal and spatial ambiguity.</p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (17) ◽  
pp. 2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingkai Wang ◽  
Peng Lu ◽  
Yongheng Zu ◽  
Zhijun Li ◽  
Matti Leppäranta ◽  
...  

Arctic sea ice concentration (SIC) has been studied extensively using passive microwave (PM) remote sensing. This technology could be used to improve navigation along vessel cruise paths; however, investigations on this topic have been limited. In this study, shipborne photographic observation (P-OBS) of sea ice was conducted using oblique-oriented cameras during the Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition in the summer of 2016. SIC and the areal fractions of open water, melt ponds, and sea ice (Aw, Ap, and Ai, respectively) were determined along the cruise path. The distribution of SIC along the cruise path was U-shaped, and open water accounted for a large proportion of the path. The SIC derived from the commonly used PM algorithms was compared with the moving average (MA) P-OBS SIC, including Bootstrap and NASA Team (NT) algorithms based on Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) data; and ARTIST sea ice, Bootstrap, Sea Ice Climate Change Initiative, and NASA Team 2 (NT2) algorithms based on Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) data. P-OBS performed better than PM remote sensing at detecting low SIC (< 10%). Our results indicate that PM SIC overestimates MA P-OBS SIC at low SIC, but underestimates it when SIC exceeds a turnover point (TP). The presence of melt ponds affected the accuracy of the PM SIC; the PM SIC shifted from an overestimate to an underestimate with increasing Ap, compared with MA P-OBS SIC below the TP, while the underestimation increased above the TP. The PM algorithms were then ranked; SSMIS-NT and AMSR2-NT2 are the best and worst choices for Arctic navigation, respectively.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi-Ran Wang ◽  
Xiao-Ming Li

Abstract. Widely used sea ice concentration and sea ice cover in polar regions are derived mainly from spaceborne microwave radiometer and scatterometer data, and the typical spatial resolution of these products ranges from several to dozens of kilometers. Due to dramatic changes in polar sea ice, high-resolution sea ice cover data are drawing increasing attention for polar navigation, environmental research, and offshore operations. In this paper, we focused on developing an approach for deriving a high-resolution sea ice cover product for the Arctic using Sentinel-1 (S1) dual-polarization (horizontal-horizontal, HH, and horizontal-vertical, HV) data in extra wide swath (EW) mode. The approach for discriminating sea ice from open water by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data is based on a modified U-Net architecture, a deep learning network. By employing an integrated stacking model to combine multiple U-Net classifiers with diverse specializations, sea ice segmentation is achieved with superior accuracy over any individual classifier. We applied the proposed approach to over 28,000 S1 EW images acquired in 2019 to obtain sea ice cover products in a high spatial resolution of 400 m. By converting the S1-derived sea ice cover to concentration and then compared with Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) sea ice concentration data, showing an average absolute difference of 5.55 % with seasonal fluctuations. A direct comparison with Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS) daily sea ice cover data achieves an average accuracy of 93.98 %. These results show that the developed S1-derived sea ice cover results are comparable to the AMSR and IMS data in terms of overall accuracy but superior to these data in presenting detailed sea ice cover information, particularly in the marginal ice zone (MIZ). Data are available at: https://doi.org/10.11922/sciencedb.00273 (Wang and Li, 2020).


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 2539
Author(s):  
Azadeh Abdollahnejad ◽  
Dimitrios Panagiotidis ◽  
Lukáš Bílek

Advanced monitoring and mapping of forest areas using the latest technological advances in satellite imagery is an alternative solution for sustainable forest management compared to conventional ground measurements. Remote sensing products have been a key source of information and cost-effective options for monitoring changes in harvested areas. Despite recent advances in satellite technology with a broad variety of spectral and temporal resolutions, monitoring the areal extent of harvested forest areas in managed forests is still a challenge, primarily due to the highly dynamic spatiotemporal patterns of logging activities. Our goal was to introduce a plot-based method for monitoring harvested forest areas from very high-resolution (VHR), low-cost satellite images. Our method encompassed two data categories, which included vegetation indices (VIs) and texture analysis (TA). Each group of data was used to model the amount of harvested volume both independently and in combination. Our results indicated that the composition of all spectral bands can improve the accuracy of all models of average volume by 23.52 RMSE reduction and total volume by 33.57 RMSE reduction. This method demonstrated that monitoring and extrapolation of the calculated relation and results from smaller forested areas could be applied as an automatic remote-based supervised monitoring method over larger forest areas.


2019 ◽  
Vol 232 ◽  
pp. 111300
Author(s):  
Xiaogang Song ◽  
Nana Han ◽  
Xinjian Shan ◽  
Chisheng Wang ◽  
Yingfeng Zhang ◽  
...  

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