Overview of Japan's spaceborne vegetation lidar mission

Jumpei Murooka; Takashi Kobayashi; Tadashi Imai; Keiko Suzuki; Daisuke Sakaizawa; Shiro Yamakawa; Ryota Sato; Haruo Sawada; Kazuhiro Asai

doi:10.1117/12.2029119

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22 October 2013 Overview of Japan's spaceborne vegetation lidar mission

Jumpei Murooka, Takashi Kobayashi, Tadashi Imai, Keiko Suzuki, Daisuke Sakaizawa, Shiro Yamakawa, Ryota Sato, Haruo Sawada, Kazuhiro Asai

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Proceedings Volume 8894, Lidar Technologies, Techniques, and Measurements for Atmospheric Remote Sensing IX; 88940B (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2029119
Event: SPIE Remote Sensing, 2013, Dresden, Germany

Abstract

Vegetation LIDAR, which measures an accurate canopy height, has been studied by JAXA. Canopy height is a very important parameter to estimate forest biomass, and global measurement of accurate canopy height leads to better understanding of the global carbon cycle. The vegetation LiDAR is designed based on the assumption that it is to be mounted on the Exposed Facility (EF) of the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM, also known as “Kibo”) on the International Space Station (ISS). The vegetation LIDAR uses an array detector (2x2) for dividing the ground footprint, making it possible to detect the slope of the ground for improving the accuracy of canopy height measurement. However, dividing the footprint may cause a reduction in reflected lights and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR); hence, the vegetation LiDAR system needs high sensitivity and low-noise array detector module. We made a prototype of the array detector module and it satisfied the tentative target SNR which we set. This presentation will introduce the mission objectives, the LiDAR system including experimental prototypes of array detector module, and some results of the study.

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Jumpei Murooka, Takashi Kobayashi, Tadashi Imai, Keiko Suzuki, Daisuke Sakaizawa, Shiro Yamakawa, Ryota Sato, Haruo Sawada, and Kazuhiro Asai "Overview of Japan's spaceborne vegetation lidar mission", Proc. SPIE 8894, Lidar Technologies, Techniques, and Measurements for Atmospheric Remote Sensing IX, 88940B (22 October 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2029119

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