Radiometric Calibration of a Dual-Wavelength, Full-Waveform Terrestrial Lidar.

Radiometric calibration of the Dual-Wavelength Echidna(®) Lidar (DWEL), a full-waveform terrestrial laser scanner with two simultaneously-pulsing infrared lasers at 1064 nm and 1548 nm, provides accurate dual-wavelength apparent reflectance (ρ(app)), a physically-defined value that is related to the radiative and structural characteristics of scanned targets and independent of range and instrument optics and electronics. The errors of ρ(app) are 8.1% for 1064 nm and 6.4% for 1548 nm. A sensitivity analysis shows that ρ(app) error is dominated by range errors at near ranges, but by lidar intensity errors at far ranges. Our semi-empirical model for radiometric calibration combines a generalized logistic function to explicitly model telescopic effects due to defocusing of return signals at near range with a negative exponential function to model the fall-off of return intensity with range. Accurate values of ρ(app) from the radiometric calibration improve the quantification of vegetation structure, facilitate the comparison and coupling of lidar datasets from different instruments, campaigns or wavelengths and advance the utilization of bi- and multi-spectral information added to 3D scans by novel spectral lidars.

Estimating forest LAI profiles and structural parameters using a ground-based laser called 'Echidna'.

There are many techniques for measuring leaf area index (LAI) and forest canopy foliage profiles but their accuracy is questionable. This paper briefly reviews current methods of estimating forest LAI and presents a novel, ground-based laser system, Echidna that can make a wide range of measurements of forest structure, including LAI. Here, use of the system to provide field data and derived gap probabilities in the form of a 'hemispherical photograph with range' is demonstrated. The results show consistency and reproducibility and do not depend on special conditions for the natural light field.

Particular solution of the discrete-ordinate method.

We present two methods that can be used to derive the particular solution of the discrete-ordinate method (DOM) for an arbitrary source in a plane-parallel atmosphere, which allows us to solve the transfer equation 12-18% faster in the case of a single beam source and is even faster for the atmosphere thermal emission source. We also remove the divide by zero problem that occurs when a beam source coincides with a Gaussian quadrature point. In our implementation, solution for multiple sources can be obtained simultaneously. For each extra source, it costs only 1.3-3.6% CPU time required for a full solution. The GDOM code that we developed previously has been revised to integrate with the DOM. Therefore we are now able to compute the Green's function and DOM solutions simultaneously.