Development of Onboard Digital Elevation and Relief Databases for ICESat-2

The Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2), the successor mission to ICESat, is planned to launch in 2017. The ICESat-2 spacecraft will carry the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS). ATLAS will be the most precise space-based photon-counting laser altimeter to date, and its measurement strategy requires the development of sophisticated onboard receiver algorithms to ensure success in downlinking the science data in the telemetry and the subsequent development of science data products. A set of databases, the digital elevation model and digital relief map (DRM), has been developed for use in ATLAS onboard signal processing. A number of elevation data sets were combined to create the global elevation and relief databases, and a method for calculating along-track relief from raster elevation data sets was devised. A technique for deriving the accuracy of the DRM relative to the magnitude of relief was developed to inform the selection of DRM margin values.

[1]  Andrew Jarvis,et al.  Hole-filled SRTM for the globe Version 4 , 2008 .

[2]  Aaas News,et al.  Book Reviews , 1893, Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal.

[3]  Bo Sun,et al.  Bedmap2: improved ice bed, surface and thickness datasets for Antarctica , 2012 .

[4]  D. Gesch,et al.  Global multi-resolution terrain elevation data 2010 (GMTED2010) , 2011 .

[5]  Tavi Murray,et al.  A new 100-m Digital Elevation Model of the Antarctic Peninsula derived from ASTER Global DEM: methods and accuracy assessment , 2012 .

[6]  E. Rodríguez,et al.  A Global Assessment of the SRTM Performance , 2006 .

[7]  Daniel Clavet,et al.  Accuracy Assessment of Canadian Digital Elevation Data using ICESat , 2009 .

[8]  Helen Amanda Fricker,et al.  The ICESat-2 Laser Altimetry Mission , 2010, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[9]  David J. Harding,et al.  Evaluation of the Global Multi-Resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 (GMTED2010) using ICESat geodetic control , 2011, International Symposium on Lidar and Radar Mapping Technologies.

[10]  N. K. Pavlis,et al.  The development and evaluation of the Earth Gravitational Model 2008 ( EGM 2008 ) , 2012 .

[11]  W. Marsden.  I and J , 2012 .

[12]  James D. Spinhirne,et al.  GLAS/ICESat L1B Global Elevation Data , 2003 .

[13]  V. Stanley Scott,et al.  The Multiple Altimeter Beam Experimental Lidar (MABEL): An Airborne Simulator for the ICESat-2 Mission , 2013 .

[14]  H. W. Leigh,et al.  Development of onboard digital elevation and relief databases for the advanced topographic laser altimeter system , 2013 .

[15]  H. Zwally,et al.  Overview of the ICESat Mission , 2005 .

[16]  A. Baccini,et al.  Mapping forest canopy height globally with spaceborne lidar , 2011 .