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NASA NTRS1991

Polarimetric passive remote sensing of periodic surfaces

The concept of polarimetry in active remote sensing is extended to passive remote sensing. The potential use of the third and fourth Stokes parameters U and V, which play an important role in polarimetric active remote sensing, is demonstrated for passive remote sensing. It is shown that, by the use of the reciprocity principle, the polarimetric parameters of passive remote sensing can be obtained through the solution of the associated direct scattering problem. These ideas are applied to study polarimetric passive remote sensing of periodic surfaces. The solution of the direct scattering problem is obtained by an integral equation formulation which involves evaluation of periodic Green's functions and normal derivative of those on the surface. Rapid evaluation of the slowly convergent series associated with these functions is observed to be critical for the feasibility of the method. New formulas, which are rapidly convergent, are derived for the calculation of these series. The study has shown that the brightness temperature of the Stokes parameter U can be significant in passive remote sensing. Values as high as 50 K are observed for certain configurations.

Veysoglu, Murat E.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Remote sensing of Earth terrain

Progress report on remote sensing of Earth terrain covering the period from Jan. to June 1993 is presented. Areas of research include: radiative transfer model for active and passive remote sensing of vegetation canopy; polarimetric thermal emission from rough ocean surfaces; polarimetric passive remote sensing of ocean wind vectors; polarimetric thermal emission from periodic water surfaces; layer model with tandom spheriodal scatterers for remote sensing of vegetation canopy; application of theoretical models to active and passive remote sensing of saline ice; radiative transfer theory for polarimetric remote sensing of pine forest; scattering of electromagnetic waves from a dense medium consisting of correlated mie scatterers with size distributions and applications to dry snow; variance of phase fluctuations of waves propagating through a random medium; polarimetric signatures of a canopy of dielectric cylinders based on first and second order vector radiative transfer theory; branching model for vegetation; polarimetric passive remote sensing of periodic surfaces; composite volume and surface scattering model; and radar image classification.

Kong, J. A.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Visible-infrared remote-sensing model and applications for ocean waters

Remote sensing has become important in the ocean sciences, especially for research involving large spatial scales. To estimate the in-water constituents through remote sensing, whether carried out by satellite or airplane, the signal emitted from beneath the sea surface, the so called water-leaving radiance (L(w)), is of prime importance. The magnitude of L(w) depends on two terms: one is the intensity of the solar input, and the other is the reflectance of the in-water constituents. The ratio of the water-leaving radiance to the downwelling irradiance (E(d)) above the sear surface (remote-sensing reflectance, R(sub rs)) is independent of the intensity of the irradiance input, and is largely a function of the optical properties of the in-water constituents. In this work, a model is developed to interpret r(sub rs) for ocean water in the visible-infrared range. In addition to terms for the radiance scattered from molecules and particles, the model includes terms that describe contributions from bottom reflectance, fluorescence of gelbstoff or colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), and water Raman scattering. By using this model, the measured R(sub rs) of waters from the West Florida Shelf to the Mississippi River plume, which covered a (concentration of chlorophyll a) range of 0.07 - 50 mg/cu m, were well interpreted. The average percentage difference (a.p.d.) between the measured and modeled R(sub rs) is 3.4%, and, for the shallow waters, the model-required water depth is within 10% of the chart depth. Simple mathematical simulations for the phytoplankton pigment absorption coefficient (a(sub theta)) are suggested for using the R(sub rs) model. The inverse problem of R(sub rs), which is to analytically derive the in-water constituents from R(sub rs) data alone, can be solved using the a(sub theta) functions without prior knowledge of the in-water optical properties. More importantly, this method avoids problems associated with a need for knowledge of the shape and value of the chlorophyll-specific absorption coefficient. The simulation was tested for a wide range of water types, including waters from Monterey Bay, the West Florida Shelf, and the Mississippi River plume. Using the simulation, the R(sub rs)-derived in-water absorption coefficients were consistent with the values from in-water measurements (r(exp 2) greater than 0.94, slope approximately 1.0). In the remote-sensing applications, a new approach is suggested for the estimation of primary production based on remote sensing. Using this approach, the calculated primary production (PP) values based upon remotely sensed data were very close to the measured values for the euphotic zone (r(exp 2) = 0.95, slope 1.26, and 32% average difference), while traditional, pigment-based PP model provided values only one-third the size of the measured data. This indicates a potential to significantly improve the accuracy of the estimation of primary production based upon remote sensing.

Lee, Zhongping↗

NASA NTRS1994

The 1994 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS 1994)

The papers presented at the symposium focus on remote sensing, particularly on global monitoring of the earth with emphasis on the solution of environmental problems. Topics discussed include remote sensing of clouds and earth troposphere, sea ice remote sensing, optical remote sensing, land monitoring and thermal sensing, atmospheric sounding and monitoring, atmospheric correction, and satellite imaging data. Other subject areas are ecosystems and vegetation monitoring; ocean winds and surface scattering; ocean waves, currents and bathymetry; satellite oceanography; SAR for remote sensing; neural nets application to remote sensing; geographical information systems; and electromagnetic wave propagation. Also discussed environmental monitoring using ERS-1; Topex/Poseidon results; spaceborne instruments; image processing and classification algorithms; and future space missions.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2001

Controlling Malaria and Other Diseases Using Remote Sensing

Remote sensing offers the vantage of monitoring a vast area of the Earth continuously. Once developed and launched, a satellite gives years of service in collecting data from the land, the oceans, and the atmosphere. Since the 1980s, attempts have been made to relate disease occurrence with remotely sensed environmental and geophysical parameters, using data from Landsat, SPOT, AVHRR, and other satellites. With higher spatial resolution, the recent satellite sensors provide a new outlook for disease control. At sub-meter to I 10m resolution, surface types associated with disease carriers can be identified more accurately. The Ikonos panchromatic sensor with I m resolution, and the Advanced Land Imager with 1 Om resolution on the newly launched Earth Observing-1, both have displayed remarkable mapping capabilities. In addition, an entire array of geophysical parameters can now be measured or inferred from various satellites. Airborne remote sensing, with less concerns on instrument weight, size, and power consumption, also offers a low-cost alternative for regional applications. NASA/GSFC began to collaborate with the Mahidol University on malaria and filariasis control using remote sensing in late 2000. The objectives are: (1) To map the breeding sites for the major vector species; (2) To identify the potential sites for larvicide and insecticide applications; (3) To explore the linkage of vector population and transmission intensity to environmental variables; (4) To monitor the impact of climate change and human activities on vector population and transmission; and (5) To develop a predictive model for disease distribution. Field studies are being conducted in several provinces in Thailand. Data analyses will soon begin. Malaria data in South Korea are being used as surrogates for developing classification techniques. GIS has been shown to be invaluable in making the voluminous remote sensing data more readily understandable. It will be used throughout this study to clearly demonstrate the spatial relationship between the disease intensities, geophysical variables, and socioeconomic parameters. Asides from malaria and filariasis, application of remote sensing to the control of other diseases have been vigorously pursued by NASA's Environment and Health Initiative. The current program includes projects on Rift Valley fever, St. Louis encephalitis, dengue fever, ebola, African dust and diseases, meningitis, asthma, bartonellosis, cholera, and urban health concerns. Results from these projects indicate that remote sensing will play an increasingly important role in disease control in the future.

Kiang, Richard K.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Androgynous, Reconfigurable Closed Loop Feedback Controlled Low Impact Docking System With Load Sensing Electromagnetic Capture Ring

The present invention relates to a fully androgynous, reconfigurable closed loop feedback controlled low impact docking system with load sensing electromagnetic capture ring. The docking system of the present invention preferably comprises two Docking- assemblies, each docking assembly comprising a load sensing ring having an outer face, one of more electromagnets, one or more load cells coupled to said load sensing ring. The docking assembly further comprises a plurality of actuator arms coupled to said load sensing ring and capable of dynamically adjusting the orientation of said load sensing ring and a reconfigurable closed loop control system capable of analyzing signals originating from said plurality of load cells and of outputting real time control for each of the actuators. The docking assembly of the present invention incorporates an active load sensing system to automatically dynamically adjust the load sensing ring during capture instead of requiring significant force to push and realign the ring.

Lewis, James L.↗

NASA NTRS2002

NASA Remote Sensing Research as Applied to Archaeology

The use of remotely sensed images is not new to archaeology. Ever since balloons and airplanes first flew cameras over archaeological sites, researchers have taken advantage of the elevated observation platforms to understand sites better. When viewed from above, crop marks, soil anomalies and buried features revealed new information that was not readily visible from ground level. Since 1974 and initially under the leadership of Dr. Tom Sever, NASA's Stennis Space Center, located on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, pioneered and expanded the application of remote sensing to archaeological topics, including cultural resource management. Building on remote sensing activities initiated by the National Park Service, archaeologists increasingly used this technology to study the past in greater depth. By the early 1980s, there were sufficient accomplishments in the application of remote sensing to anthropology and archaeology that a chapter on the subject was included in fundamental remote sensing references. Remote sensing technology and image analysis are currently undergoing a profound shift in emphasis from broad classification to detection, identification and condition of specific materials, both organic and inorganic. In the last few years, remote sensing platforms have grown increasingly capable and sophisticated. Sensors currently in use, or nearing deployment, offer significantly finer spatial and spectral resolutions than were previously available. Paired with new techniques of image analysis, this technology may make the direct detection of archaeological sites a realistic goal.

Giardino, Marco J.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Plant gravity sensing

This review of plant gravity sensing examines sensing in organ gravitropism, sensing in single-cell gravitropism, and nongravitropic sensing. Topics related to sensing in organ gravitropism are (1) identification of the gravitropic susceptors, including intracellular asymmetry in equilibrium position and after reorientation, susceptor signal-to-noise ratio, signal integration over threshold stimulation periods, intracellular asymmetry and gravitropic competence, and starch deficiency and gravitropic competence; (2) possible root statocytes and receptors, including identification of presumptive statocytes, cytology, and possible receptors and models of sensing; and (3) negatively gravitropic organs, including identification and distribution of presumptive statocytes and cytology and possible receptors. Topics related to nongravitropic sensing include gravitaxis, reaction wood, gravimorphogenesis, other gravity-influenced organ movements, and cytoplasmic streaming.

Non-NASA Center↗

NASA NTRS2008

NASA Remote Sensing Applications for Archaeology and Cultural Resources Management

NASA's Earth Science Mission Directorate recently completed the deployment of the Earth Observation System (EOS) which is a coordinated series of polar-orbiting and low inclination satellites for long-term global observations of the land surface, biosphere, solid Earth, atmosphere, and oceans. One of the many applications derived from EOS is the advancement of archaeological research and applications. Using satellites, manned and unmanned airborne platform, NASA scientists and their partners have conducted archaeological research using both active and passive sensors. The NASA Stennis Space Center (SSC) located in south Mississippi, near New Orleans, has been a leader in space archaeology since the mid-1970s. Remote sensing is useful in a wide range of archaeological research applications from landscape classification and predictive modeling to site discovery and mapping. Remote sensing technology and image analysis are currently undergoing a profound shift in emphasis from broad classification to detection, identification and condition of specific materials, both organic and inorganic. In the last few years, remote sensing platforms have grown increasingly capable and sophisticated. Sensors currently in use, including commercial instruments, offer significantly improved spatial and spectral resolutions. Paired with new techniques of image analysis, this technology provides for the direct detection of archaeological sites. As in all archaeological research, the application of remote sensing to archaeology requires a priori development of specific research designs and objectives. Initially targeted at broad archaeological issues, NASA space archaeology has progressed toward developing practical applications for cultural resources management (CRM). These efforts culminated with the Biloxi Workshop held by NASA and the University of Mississippi in 2002. The workshop and resulting publication specifically address the requirements of cultural resource managers through the use of remote sensing. In 2007, NASA awarded six competitively chosen projects in Space Archaeology through an open solicitation whose purpose, among several, was to addresses the potential benefits to modern society that can be derived through a better understanding of how past cultures succeeded or failed to adapt to local, regional, and global change. A further objective of NASA's space archaeology is the protection and preservation of cultural heritage sites while planning for the sustainable development of cultural resources. NASA s archaeological approach through remote sensing builds on traditional methods of aerial archaeology (i.e. crop marks) and utilizes advanced technologies for collecting and analyzing archaeological data from digital imagery. NASA s archaeological research and application projects using remote sensing have been conducted throughout the world. In North America, NASA has imaged prehistoric mound sites in Mississippi; prehistoric shell middens in Louisiana, Puebloan sites in New Mexico and more recently the sites associated with the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery Expedition (1804-1806). In Central America, NASA archaeologists have researched Mayan sites throughout the region, including the Yucatan and Costa Rica, as well as Olmec localities in Veracruz. Other data has been collected over Angkor, Cambodia, Giza in Egypt, the lost city of Ubar on the Arabian Peninsula.

Giardino, Marco J.↗

NASA NTRS2007

A Review and Analysis of Remote Sensing Capability for Air Quality Measurements as a Potential Decision Support Tool Conducted by the NASA DEVELOP Program

This project focused on a comprehensive utilization of air quality model products as decision support tools (DST) needed for public health applications. A review of past and future air quality measurement methods and their uncertainty, along with the relationship of air quality to national and global public health, is vital. This project described current and future NASA satellite remote sensing and ground sensing capabilities and the potential for using these sensors to enhance the prediction, prevention, and control of public health effects that result from poor air quality. The qualitative uncertainty of current satellite remotely sensed air quality, the ground-based remotely sensed air quality, the air quality/public health model, and the decision making process is evaluated in this study. Current peer-reviewed literature suggests that remotely sensed air quality parameters correlate well with ground-based sensor data. A satellite remote-sensed and ground-sensed data complement is needed to enhance the models/tools used by policy makers for the protection of national and global public health communities

Ross, A.↗

NASA NTRS2007

Broadband Phase Retrieval for Image-Based Wavefront Sensing

A focus-diverse phase-retrieval algorithm has been shown to perform adequately for the purpose of image-based wavefront sensing when (1) broadband light (typically spanning the visible spectrum) is used in forming the images by use of an optical system under test and (2) the assumption of monochromaticity is applied to the broadband image data. Heretofore, it had been assumed that in order to obtain adequate performance, it is necessary to use narrowband or monochromatic light. Some background information, including definitions of terms and a brief description of pertinent aspects of image-based phase retrieval, is prerequisite to a meaningful summary of the present development. Phase retrieval is a general term used in optics to denote estimation of optical imperfections or aberrations of an optical system under test. The term image-based wavefront sensing refers to a general class of algorithms that recover optical phase information, and phase-retrieval algorithms constitute a subset of this class. In phase retrieval, one utilizes the measured response of the optical system under test to produce a phase estimate. The optical response of the system is defined as the image of a point-source object, which could be a star or a laboratory point source. The phase-retrieval problem is characterized as image-based in the sense that a charge-coupled-device camera, preferably of scientific imaging quality, is used to collect image data where the optical system would normally form an image. In a variant of phase retrieval, denoted phase-diverse phase retrieval [which can include focus-diverse phase retrieval (in which various defocus planes are used)], an additional known aberration (or an equivalent diversity function) is superimposed as an aid in estimating unknown aberrations by use of an image-based wavefront-sensing algorithm. Image-based phase-retrieval differs from such other wavefront-sensing methods, such as interferometry, shearing interferometry, curvature wavefront sensing, and Shack-Hartmann sensing, all of which entail disadvantages in comparison with image-based methods. The main disadvantages of these non-image based methods are complexity of test equipment and the need for a wavefront reference.

Dean, Bruce H.↗

NASA NTRS2010

Needs Assessment for the Use of NASA Remote Sensing Data in the Development and Implementation of Estuarine and Coastal Water Quality Standards

The goals of the project are to provide information from satellite remote sensing to support numeric nutrient criteria development and to determine data processing methods and data quality requirements to support nutrient criteria development and implementation. The approach is to identify water quality indicators that are used by decision makers to assess water quality and that are related to optical properties of the water; to develop remotely sensed data products based on algorithms relating remote sensing imagery to field-based observations of indicator values; to develop methods to assess estuarine water quality, including trends, spatial and temporal variability, and seasonality; and to develop tools to assist in the development and implementation of estuarine and coastal nutrient criteria. Additional slides present process, criteria development, typical data sources and analyses for criteria process, the power of remote sensing data for the process, examples from Pensacola Bay, spatial and temporal variability, pixel matchups, remote sensing validation, remote sensing in coastal waters, requirements for remotely sensed data products, and needs assessment. An additional presentation examines group engagement and information collection. Topics include needs assessment purpose and objectives, understanding water quality decision making, determining information requirements, and next steps.

Spiering, Bruce↗

NASA NTRS2011

Spectrally Tailored Pulsed Thulium Fiber Laser System for Broadband Lidar CO2 Sensing

Thulium doped pulsed fiber lasers are capable of meeting the spectral, temporal, efficiency, size and weight demands of defense and civil applications for pulsed lasers in the eye-safe spectral regime due to inherent mechanical stability, compact "all-fiber" master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) architectures, high beam quality and efficiency. Thulium fiber's longer operating wavelength allows use of larger fiber cores without compromising beam quality, increasing potential single aperture pulse energies. Applications of these lasers include eye-safe laser ranging, frequency conversion to longer or shorter wavelengths for IR countermeasures and sensing applications with otherwise tough to achieve wavelengths and detection of atmospheric species including CO2 and water vapor. Performance of a portable thulium fiber laser system developed for CO2 sensing via a broadband lidar technique with an etalon based sensor will be discussed. The fielded laser operates with approximately 280 J pulse energy in 90-150ns pulses over a tunable 110nm spectral range and has a uniquely tailored broadband spectral output allowing the sensing of multiple CO2 lines simultaneously, simplifying future potentially space based CO2 sensing instruments by reducing the number and complexity of lasers required to carry out high precision sensing missions. Power scaling and future "all fiber" system configurations for a number of ranging, sensing, countermeasures and other yet to be defined applications by use of flexible spectral and temporal performance master oscillators will be discussed. The compact, low mass, robust, efficient and readily power scalable nature of "all-fiber" thulium lasers makes them ideal candidates for use in future space based sensing applications.

Heaps, William S.↗

NASA NTRS2006

Stability Enhancement of Polymeric Sensing Films Using Fillers

Experiments have shown the stability enhancement of polymeric sensing films on mixing the polymer with colloidal filler particles (submicron-sized) of carbon black, silver, titanium dioxide, and fumed silicon dioxide. The polymer films are candidates for potential use as sensing media in micro/nano chemical sensor devices. The need for stability enhancement of polymer sensing films arises because such films have been found to exhibit unpredictable changes in sensing activity over time, which could result in a possible failure of the sensor device. The changes in the physical properties of a polymer sensing film caused by the sorption of a target molecule can be measured by any of several established transduction techniques: electrochemical, optical, calorimetric, or piezoelectric, for example. The transduction technique used in the current polymer stability experiments is based on piezoelectric principles using a quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM). The surface of the QCM is coated with the polymer, and the mass uptake by the polymer film causes a change in the oscillating frequency of the quartz crystal. The polymer used for the current study is ethyl cellulose. The polymer/ polymer composite solutions were prepared in 1,3 dioxolane solvent. The filler concentration was fixed at 10 weight percent for the composites. The polymer or polymer composite solutions were cast on the quartz crystal having a fundamental frequency of about 6 MHz. The coated crystal was subjected to a multistage drying process to remove all measurable traces of the solvent. In each experiment, the frequency of oscillation was measured while the QCM was exposed to clean, dry, flowing air for about 30 minutes, then to air containing a known concentration of isopropanol for about 30 minutes, then again to clean dry air for about 30 minutes, and so forth. This cycle of measurements for varying isopropanol concentrations was repeated at intervals for several months. The figure depicts some of the sensing film stability results for ethyl cellulose polymer, ethyl cellulose-carbon black, and ethyl cellulose-silicon dioxide composite systems. An ethyl cellulose film exhibited a marked decline in response in the first few months of study and settled to a steady average response after about four months. However, response varied widely around the average response for ethyl cellulose film. In contrast, ethyl cellulose- carbon black and ethyl cellulose-silicon dioxide composites also declined in the early months, but showed more repeatable sensing film activity after the initial decline. Similar trends were observed in experiments for ethyl cellulose-titanium dioxide and ethyl cellulose-silver composites.

Lin, Brian↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Delay Tolerant, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID )-enabled Sensing

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology offers a completely passive method to transmit fixed data sequences from an RFID tag, which typically doesn’t have its own power supply, to an interrogator. Radio frequency (RF) energy harvested from the interrogator is rectified by the tag and used to charge an integrated circuit (IC). The IC then modulates the received signal with the data stored on the tag and reflects the energy back to the interrogator. RFID has seen great proliferation in terrestrial inventory management applications, and it has recently made the jump to spaceflight applications onboard the International Space Station, augmenting an existing optical bar‐code infrastructure for tracking supplies. A number of advanced automated logistics management (ALM) concepts employing RFID are currently being developed and evaluated, including so‐called “smart” shelves, cubbies, and trash receptacles using low‐power, embeddable RFID interrogators. An infrastructure where both crew members and robotic assistants, such as autonomous free flyers, are similarly equipped with small RFID interrogators seems likely. It therefore behooves us to consider extending this infrastructure beyond ALM to applications such as low power, embedded sensing. Typically, data on an RFID tag can only be written by an RFID interrogator, using interrogator energy. In recent years, however, a few efforts have focused on using that energy to drive data acquisition from the tag IC, allowing the tag to modify its stored data sequence with sensor data before replying to an interrogator. In this way, the tag can act as a completely passive sensing device. One problem exists with this approach, however: the tag cannot gather data when an interrogator is not present. Thus, strictly passive RFID sensing tags cannot gather data at regular intervals, in the manner of a typical wireless sensor network, without careful, and impractical, planning of mobile interrogator movements. To address this shortcoming, we look to a recent advance in RFID technology which allows an external microprocessor to power the tag IC and write directly into its RFID memory using a wired serial interface. In this paradigm, data gathering is driven by a small, on‐board power supply (using batteries or harvested energy), and data transfer is provided passively through the RFID interrogation service. Since communication typically consumes the lion’s share of power in WSNs, such a technique has the potential to enable extremely long‐lived, embedded wireless sensing when used with extremely low‐current microcontrollers. Since the communication channel is only open when an interrogator is present and actively interrogating the RFID sensing tag, transport of periodically‐sampled sensor data presents itself as a delay/disruption‐tolerant networking (DTN) problem. In this paper, we present the design of a DTN‐like overlay on the common EPC Global, Class 1, Generation 2 RFID standard. This overlay allows seamless, guaranteed data transfer using the EPC Global protocol, supporting extremely low‐power, embedded sensing using an infrastructure likely to be already in place for ALM applications. We evaluate a prototype implementation of a complete end‐to‐end system using a robotic RFID interrogation agent, and we present future directions for the development of this sensing technique.

Raymond S. Wagner↗

NASA NTRS2015

Crosscutting Airborne Remote Sensing Technologies for Oil and Gas and Earth Science Applications

Airborne imaging spectroscopy has evolved dramatically since the 1980s as a robust remote sensing technique used to generate 2-dimensional maps of surface properties over large spatial areas. Traditional applications for passive airborne imaging spectroscopy include interrogation of surface composition, such as mapping of vegetation diversity and surface geological composition. Two recent applications are particularly relevant to the needs of both the oil and gas as well as government sectors: quantification of surficial hydrocarbon thickness in aquatic environments and mapping atmospheric greenhouse gas components. These techniques provide valuable capabilities for petroleum seepage in addition to detection and quantification of fugitive emissions. New empirical data that provides insight into the source strength of anthropogenic methane will be reviewed, with particular emphasis on the evolving constraints enabled by new methane remote sensing techniques. Contemporary studies attribute high-strength point sources as significantly contributing to the national methane inventory and underscore the need for high performance remote sensing technologies that provide quantitative leak detection. Imaging sensors that map spatial distributions of methane anomalies provide effective techniques to detect, localize, and quantify fugitive leaks. Airborne remote sensing instruments provide the unique combination of high spatial resolution (<1 m) and large coverage required to directly attribute methane emissions to individual emission sources. This capability cannot currently be achieved using spaceborne sensors. In this study, results from recent NASA remote sensing field experiments focused on point-source leak detection, will be highlighted. This includes existing quantitative capabilities for oil and methane using state-of-the-art airborne remote sensing instruments. While these capabilities are of interest to NASA for assessment of environmental impact and global climate change, industry similarly seeks to detect and localize leaks of both oil and methane across operating fields. In some cases, higher sensitivities desired for upstream and downstream applications can only be provided by new airborne remote sensing instruments tailored specifically for a given application. There exists a unique opportunity for alignment of efforts between commercial and government sectors to advance the next generation of instruments to provide more sensitive leak detection capabilities, including those for quantitative source strength determination.

hyperspectral↗

NASA NTRS2020

NASA Next-Generation Sensing Technologies for Earth & Planetary Science

Dr. Ved Chirayath's seminar will highlight new sensing technologies and airborne platforms he is developing for Earth & Space Science as director of the NASA Silicon Valley Laboratory for Advanced Sensing. His talk will feature recent work on Fluid Lensing, the first remote sensing technology capable of imaging through ocean waves in 3D at sub-cm resolutions, MiDAR, a next-generation active hyperspectral remote sensing and optical communications instrument, airborne gas sensing of multipollutant combustion sources, and a plasma actuated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that utilized high-voltage dielectric discharge devices to achieve the first plasma controlled flight in history.Fluid Lensing and the NASA FluidCam instrument have been used extensively to provide distortion-free 3D multispectral imagery from UAVs of shallow marine systems around the world. MiDAR is being deployed on aircraft and underwater remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) as a new method to remotely sense living and nonliving structures in extreme environments as an analog for future Ocean Worlds robotic exploration missions. Finally, Chirayath will present preliminary results from NeMO-Net, a supercomputer-based neural network that uses a citizen science video game for global multimodal coral reef benthic habitat mapping, fusing remote sensing data from Fluid Lensing, MiDAR, NASA's Earth Observing System, and commercial satellites, to better understand the present and past dynamics of shallow marine systems. Together, these maturing technologies present promising new ways in which to explore terrestrial, marine, and aerial systems on Earth, and, ultimately, aid in the search for extraterrestrial life within our solar system and beyond.

Chirayath, Ved↗

DOE OSTI2025

Nitrogen Vacancy Center in Diamond for the Stress and Field Sensing Applications

The nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in a nanodiamond (ND) crystal is a promising material for quantum information processing, sensing, and computing applications. It is one of the best candidate materials for quantum sensing and metrology expected to work at elevated temperatures and pressures conditions. We computationally show the effect of strain on the defect band edges and band gaps in the NV center diamond. A low energy Hamiltonian is developed for the ±1 spin manifold at the ground state. We show the quantum sensing device is a few orders of magnitude superior in sensing than the traditional optical sensing devices. We also discuss experimental results from the optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) and the spin relaxometry for the field sensing applications. The presentation concludes by providing a model for free spins detection of the rare earth ions.

field sensing applications↗