OPTICAL-INFRARED SENSORS – THERMAL

SENSORS – MICROWAVE SENSORS

Sensors are the devices used to record the electromagnetic radiations emitted or reflected from
the target features and acquire images used in variety of remote sensing applications.
In remote sensing, sensors are capable of acquiring information about the target feature to
which human eye is insensitive to recognise specially the radiations in other parts of the
electromagnetic spectrum than in the visible portion.

Sensors are broadly classified into three categories:

Optical sensors

​ Optical sensors utilises the energy from sun which is the source of illumination by
recording the energy reflected or emitted from the target feature
​ Optical sensors record the reflected or emitted energy in the visible, near infrared and
short-wave infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
 OPTICAL-INFRARED SENSORS

Optical infrared remote sensors are used to record reflected/emitted radiation of visible,
near-middle and far infrared regions of electromagnetic radiation. They can observe for
wavelength extend from 400-2000 nm. Sun is the source of optical remote sensing. There are
two kinds of observation methods using optical sensors: visible/near infrared remote sensing and
thermal infrared remote sensing.

a) Visible/Near Infrared Remote Sensing

In this observation method visible light and near infrared rays of sunlight reflected by objects on
the ground is observed. The magnitude of reflection infer the conditions of land surface, e.g.,
plant species and their distribution, forest farm fields, rivers, lakes, urban areas etc. In the
absence of sunlight or darkness, this method cannot be used.

b) Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing

In thermal infrared remote sensing, the land surface radiate heat due to interaction of earth
surface with solar radiation. Also this is used to observe the high temperature areas, such as
volcanic activities and forest fires. Based on the strength of radiation, one can surface
temperatures of land and sea, and status of volcanic activities and forest fires. This method can
observe at night when there is no cloud.

The optical remote sensing can be classified into panchromatic imaging system, multispectral
imaging system and hyperspectral imaging system.

Panchromatic Imaging System

A single channel sensor with broad wavelength range is used to detect radiation within a broad
wavelength range. In panchromatic band, visible and near infrared are included. The imagery
appears as a black and white photograph. The color of the target is not available. Examples of
panchromatic imaging system are Landsat ETM+ PAN, SPOT HRV-PAN and IKONOS PAN,
IRS-1C, IRS-1D and CARTOSAT-2A. Spectral range of Panchromatic band of ETM+ is 0.52 µm
to 0.9 µm, CARTOSAT-2B is 0.45-0.85 µm, SPOT is 0.45- 0.745 µm.

Multispectral imaging system

The multispectral imaging system uses a multichannel detectors and records radiation within a
narrow range of wavelength. Both brightness and color informations are available on the image.
LANDSAT, LANDSAT TM, SPOT HRV-XS and LISS etc are the examples.

Hyperspectral imaging system

MICROWAVE SENSORS

The region Microwave sensors receive microwaves, which are longer wavelength than visible
light and infrared rays, and observation is not affected by day, night or weather. Microwave
portion of the spectrum includes wavelengths within the approximate range of 1 mm to1m. Thus,
the longest microwaves are about 2,500,000 times longer than the shortest light waves. There are
two types of observation methods using microwave sensor: active and passive.

a) Active sensor: The sensor emits microwaves and observes microwaves reflected by land
surface features. It is used to observe mountains, valleys, surface of oceans wind, wave and ice
conditions.
b) Passive sensor: This type of sensor records microwaves that naturally radiated from earth
surface features. It is suitable to observe sea surface temperature, snow accumulation, thickness
of ice, soil moisture and hydrological applications etc.RISAT is an Indian remote sensing
satellite provides microwave data.

THERMAL SENSORS

​ All objects having temperature above absolute zero (0 Kelvin) starts emitting
electromagnetic energy in wavelength range between 3 m to 100 m.
​ All objects selectively absorb short wavelength solar energy and radiate thermal
infrared energy. In a thermal image the tone of an object is a function of its surface
temperature and its emissivity i.e. all objects emit infrared radiation and the amount
of emitted radiation is a function of surface temperature.
​ Hot objects appear in lighter tone and cooler objects appear darker in an infrared
image. In other words, the energy recorded by the radiometer is proportional to the
product of the absolute physical temperature (T) and emissivity (î), where ‘T’ is
referred to as brightness temperature.
 ​ As all natural surface features emits radiations so as to keep thermal equilibrium
which are measured by radiometer and is represented in terms of a black body.
●​ The concept of a perfect black body relates to an ideal material that completely absorbs
all incident radiation, converting it to internal energy that gives rise to a characteristic
temperature profile.
●​ The radiant temperature of any object depends on two major factors i.e. kinetic
temperature and emissivity. Infrared sensors detect remote objects by recording the
emitted infrared energy as a continuous tone image on thermal sensitive photographic
film.
●​ Emissivity is the ratio of radiance spectrum of a non perfect emitter over that of a perfect
emitter (black body) at the same temperature and is a measure of the ability of a material
to radiate and to absorb the incident radiation. Radiant energy striking the surface of a
material is partly reflected, absorbed and partly transmitted through the material.
●​ A black body material absorbs all radiant energy striking it therefore absorptivity equals
to 1. Spectral curves in figure 16 implicit the underlying principle of thermal infrared
remote sensing indicating relative intensities of radiation (radiances) as a function of
wavelength for materials with different intrinsic temperatures.

​ As illustrated in the above figure, all the curves have similar shapes, and higher
intensity of emittance for hotter radiating object. Also, the peaks of the curves shift
symmetrically towards left with the increase in kinetic temperature of the radiating
object as per the Wien’s Displacement Law.
​ To be more precise, curves in the figure are representative of blackbodies at different
temperatures. Natural materials are referred as gray bodies with temperatures above
those of perfect blackbodies.
​ There are objects emitting radiations even at longer wavelengths (i.e. right portion of
the curves and beyond) extending into the microwave region. The emitted radiations
are generally quite low in intensity and also not much attenuated by the atmosphere.
 ​ The temperatures measured by these instruments are brightness temperatures (Tb) also
referred to as radio-brightness and is characterised by the product of its emissivity and
its physical temperature (in Kelvin).

Applications of thermal infrared remote sensing can be broadly classified into two categories;
​ one in which surface temperature is governed by man made sources of heat

​ and other which is governed by solar radiation.

the technique has been used from airborne platforms for determining heat losses from
buildings and other engineering structures.

temperature is governed by solar radiation

thermal infrared remote sensing has been used for identifying crop types, surface soil
moisture, monitoring forest fires, military operations as well as identification of crop species for
detecting crop diseases