Introduction to Remote Sensing

Introduction to Remote Sensing

About the course

The proposed course provides basic understanding about satellite based Remote Sensing technology. Presently, remote sensing datasets available from various earth orbiting satellites  are being used extensively in various domains including in civil engineering, water resources, earth sciences, transportation engineering, navigation etc. Google Earth has further made access to high spatial resolution remote sensing data available to non-experts with great ease.


Intended audience

It is an Elective Course for Under graduate engineering and post graduate science students.


Pre-requisites

Current students of engineering students and current post graduate science students.


Industries that will recognize this course

Geoinformatics companies, e.g NIIT, ESRI India, Leica Geoinformatics, MapmyIndia etc.

  Course Instructor



Dr. Arun K. Saraf is Ph. D. (Remote Sensing) from University of Dundee, United Kingdom. Presently he is working as Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, and teaches courses on Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Advanced GIS, Remote Sensing, Geomorphology etc. to under- and post-graduate students of Geological Technology and Applied Geology. He was also Head of Department of Earth Sciences between Jan. 2012 – Feb. 2015. He was first in the country to introduce GIS course to post-graduate students in the year 1990. In 1986, he was awarded “National Fellowship to Study Abroad” by Govt. of India for his doctoral degree. Further, in 1993 he was awarded “Indo-US S&T Fellowship” and worked in Goddard Space Flight Centre, NASA, USA for Post Doctoral Research. He has been also awarded “National Remote Sensing Award-2001” by Indian Society of Remote Sensing and “GIS Professional of the Year Award-2001” by Map India 2002 for his outstanding research contributions in the fields of Remote Sensing and GIS. Earlier, he has also been given several Khosla Research Awards and Prizes by then University of Roorkee. So far Prof. Saraf has published more than 100 research papers in journals of repute (ISI) and supervised 11 Ph.Ds. He was also Associate Editor of International Journal of Remote Sensing during 2003-2015. Through funding from DST, Min. of Earth Sciences, CSIR, Prof. Saraf has been able to establish and operating NOAA-HRPT Satellite Earth Station at IITR since Oct. 2002, first in any educational institute in the country. This Earth Station is still operational and acquiring data from NOAA-18 & 19 day-and-night.


Course Plan

Week-1 :   What is satellite based remote sensing? Development of remote sensing technology and advantages. Different platforms of remote sensing. EM spectrum, solar reflection and thermal emission remote sensing. Interaction of EM radiation with atmosphere including atmospheric scattering,  absorption and emission.   Week-2 :   Interaction mechanisms of EM radiation with ground, spectral response curves. Principles of image interpretation. Multi-spectral scanners and imaging devices. Salient characteristics of LANDSAT, IRS, Cartosat, ResourceSat etc. sensors. Image characteristics and different resolutions in Remote Sensing.

  Week-3 :   Image interpretation of different geological landforms, rock types and structures. Remote Sensing integration with GIS and GPS. Georeferencing Technique. Basic image enhancement techniques. Spatial filtering techniques.

  Week-4 :   Image classification techniques. InSAR Technique and its applications. Hyperspectral Remote Sensing. Integrated applications of RS and GIS in groundwater studies. Limitations of Remote Sensing Technique.