Airborne Multispectral Polarization ImagerThis effort will investigate the feasibility of designing and fabricating a passive,airborne, multispectral polarization imager. This system will operate in a pushbroom,line-scanner mode using multiple, linear, silicon arrays to acquire scene polarizationdata. This system will acquire enough information to allow the determination of thefirst three Stokes parameters of the reflected scene energy. To date, multispectralpolarization data has been collected using single-point profilers or film-based analogimage recording techniques. The innovation of the proposed instrument will be toextend the power capabilities of airborne, digital scanner systems to include polarizationselective detection. A polarization scanner system has shown potential in the determinationof leaf area index, as well as plant development stage, leaf water content, and cropdamage or disease.It is anticipated that this instrument will find application in all commercial remotesensing programs involving precise measurements of reflected or emitted electromagneticfields.polarization, imager, multispectral, airborne, vegetation
