Requirements for a global lidar system: spaceborne lidar with wall-to-wall coverage.

ABSTRACT: Lidar is the optimum technology for measuring bare-Earth elevation beneath, and the structure of, vegetation. Consequently, airborne laser scanning (ALS) is widely employed for use in a range of applications. However, ALS is not available globally nor frequently updated due to its high cost per unit area. Spaceborne lidar can map globally but energy requirements limit existing spaceborne lidars to sparse sampling missions, unsuitable for many common ALS applications. This paper derives the equations to calculate the coverage a lidar satellite could achieve for a given set of characteristics (released open-source), then uses a cloud map to determine the number of satellites needed to achieve continuous, global coverage within a certain time-frame. Using the characteristics of existing in-or

SUBMITTER: Hancock S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8647680 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature