Simultaneous Microwave and Optical Wavelength Observations of Agricultural Targets

SUMMARYA 13.3 GHz scatterometer and a nadir-viewing radiometer measuring reflected radiance in the LANDSAT bands were flown simultaneously over a number of fields near Ottawa containing eleven different forage crops. The purpose of the experiment was to compare the relative ability of the optical and microwave sensors to differentiate the various crop types, and to investigate the advantages of combining optical and microwave measurements for crop discrimination.The coherent illumination and detection inherent in the scatterometer operation results in analysis techniques and statistical uncertainties which are quite different from those associated with the more traditional optical techniques. The data reduction procedure and resulting uncertainties are discussed in some detail.Confusion matrices were calculated for both the optical and the microwave data. Microwave and optical sensors provide complementary information which, when combined, permit the most accurate (88.4 ± 8.0 (s.d.) % for 9 classes) class...