About SDL Products and Capabilities Programs News Center Working with SDL Conferences Employment
Home : Conferences : CALCON : Pre-Conference Tutorial

Pre-Conference Tutorial

Monday, August 24, 2009
8:30 am – 12:00 pm

Optical and Microwave Calibration for Remote Sensing
This year’s tutorial consists of two main topics for those new to remote sensing or those moving from one section of the electromagnetic spectrum to another.
The first half of the tutorial will review those microwave principals fundamental to understanding the operation and calibration of microwave sensors (radiometers and radars) for remote sensing.
The second half will cover those optical principals fundamental to understanding the operation and calibration of EO/IR sensors for remote sensing. Comparisons between these two portions of the spectrum will be addressed to show the complementary nature of these sensors, as well as indicating when one type of sensor has significant advantages over the other.

Fundamentals for Microwave Sensor Calibration
Randy Jost, USU/Space Dynamics Laboratory

Microwaves vs. Optical Radiation

  • Phase and coherence
  • Microwave radiometry
  • Microwave propagation

Microwave Targets/Signatures

  • Continuous media and the atmosphere
  • Interaction of microwaves with discrete objects
  • Scattering and emissions from volumes
  • Scattering and emissions from smooth surfaces
  • Scattering and emissions from rough surfaces

Detection of Microwaves – Microwave Sensors

  • Passive – radiometers
  • Active – radars

Calibration of Microwave Sensors

  • Calibration of radiometers
  • Calibration of radars

Microwave Applications

  • Atmospheric sounding
  • Passive imaging
  • Active imaging
  • Interferometry

Fundamentals for Optical Radiometric Sensor Calibration
David Pollock, University of Alabama, Huntsville

Radiometry Fundamentals

  • The Poynting vector
  • A‐Omega product (throughput)
  • Phase errors
  • Index of refraction
  • Projected solid angle
  • Spatial resolution
  • Information content

Physics‐based Sensor Modeling

  • The calibration equation
  • Spatial information bandwidth and content
  • Temporal information bandwidth and content
  • Photo‐transducer (detector) focus
  • Noise sources

Physics‐based Observation Modeling

  • Calibration source spectral radiance
  • Unknown source spectral radiance
  • Unknown spectral radiance of the intervening medium

Radiometric Uncertainty

  • Accuracy
  • Precision
  • The International System of Units (SI)
  • Competing SI accuracies

 

©2003-2009 Space Dynamics Laboratory