COLOR LINE SCANNER AS IMAGING NDVI SENSOR 1

A new low-cost high-resolution line scanner has been developed at the Alfred Wegener Institut for Polar and Marine Research in Germany. For NDVI applications the Color Line Scanner (CLS) measures the solar radiation reflected by the ground surface in the spectral ranges of 500nm to 570nm (green), 580nm to 680nm (red) and 720nm to 830nm (near infrared). With the red and near infrared spectral bands the NDVI can be calculated in order to map vegetation. The line scanner supports a resolution of 2048 pixels per line for each spectral band. During data acquisition 50 lines per second are stored yielding a maximum spatial resolution of better than 0.5m. With DGPS and attitude measurements (INS or Vector GPS) it is possible to geo-reference the line scanner data into a map format with an absolute accuracy of a few metres. Several images can be combined to cover large areas. After the determination of mounting errors the geo-referencing into a map is carried out automatically without manual adjustments. The CLS was first used as an imaging NDVI sensor at Airborne Research Australia (ARA) the Major National Research Facility at the Flinders University of South Australia to investigate spatial and temporal variations of vegetation cover.