Airborne remote sensing in Australia using small, modern, highly cost-efficient platforms - Capabilities and examples

Airborne Research Australia (ARA) has pioneered the use of small, modern and highly cost-efficient platforms for a wide range of airborne remote and in-situ sensing. The aircraft used are a purpose-built special-mission version of a motorglider with highly efficient aerodynamics combined with a quiet, minimum-pollution engine. Their flight characteristics and capabilities are very similar to those of typical mid-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The aircraft and sensors have been used in a wide range of projects Australia-wide. Examples are the simultaneous use of full waveform resolving lidar, aerial imaging, hyperspectral, multispectral and microwave sensing on near 1,000km-long transects over Australia's savannah landscape; bathymetric studies using hyperspectral scanning over coastal waters in Victoria; and a survey of the topography of exposed reefs in the Kimberley region of Australia. Recently, an active airborne scatterometer was added to the sensor kit which has already produced first images.