Volunteered remote sensing data generation with air passengers as sensors

Remote sensing satellites are playing very important roles in diverse earth observation fields. However, long revisit period, high cost and dense cloud cover have been the main limitations of satellite remote sensing for a long time. This paper introduces the novel volunteered passenger aircraft rem...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of digital earth 2021-02, Vol.14 (2), p.158-180
Main Authors: Wang, Chisheng, Wang, Yongquan, Wang, Leyang, Hu, Zhongwen, Zhang, Shaobiao, Wang, Shuanglong, Xiu, Wenqun, Cui, Hongxing, Wang, Dan, Li, Qingquan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aircraft
Cloud cover
Data
Data analysis
Data processing
Earth observations (from space)
Economic activities
Economic conditions
handheld cameras
Land cover
Passenger aircraft
Passengers
Remote observing
Remote sensing
Remote sensors
Satellites
Spaceborne remote sensing
Volunteered geographic information
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Remote sensing satellites are playing very important roles in diverse earth observation fields. However, long revisit period, high cost and dense cloud cover have been the main limitations of satellite remote sensing for a long time. This paper introduces the novel volunteered passenger aircraft remote sensing (VPARS) concept, which can partly overcome these problems. By obtaining aerial imaging data from passengers using a portable smartphone on a passenger aircraft, it has various advantages including low cost, high revisit, dense coverage, and partial anti-cloud, which can well complement conventional remote sensing data. This paper examines the concept of VPARS and give general data processing framework of VPARS. Several cases were given to validate this processing approach. Two preliminary applications on land cover classification and economic activity monitoring validate the applicability of the VPARS data. Furthermore, we examine the issues about data maintenance, potential applications, limitations and challenges. We conclude the VPARS can benefit both scientific and industrial communities who rely on remote sensing data.
ISSN:1753-8947
1753-8955
DOI:10.1080/17538947.2020.1808721