Paris Geospatial, LLC – Expert Geospatial Consulting

What are the Types of EMR Systems?

• Active EMR Systems:

• Radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging): Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR) and InterFerometric SAR (IFSAR)
• LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging)

• Passive EMR Systems:
o Non-imaging radiometers (a.k.a., spectrometers)
o Optical EMR imagers (some are imaging radiometers):

• Single-band imagers, e.g., panchromatic (PAN)
• Shortwave multispectral (MS) imagers: e.g., blue-light (BL), greenlight(GL), red-light (RL), near infrared (N), and middle infrared (M)systems.
• Thermal infrared imagers
• Hyperspectral imagers

Some Passive EMR Systems cover the whole earth more than once every
day, but at very coarse spatial resolution (250-m or worse). Other Passive
EMR Systems capture very high-resolution images (as good as 0.61-m) – but
not every day or even every month or year. Active EMR Systems on
spacecraft today include only single-band, single polarization combinations of
SAR systems.
Organized by spatial resolution, Four Basic Types of Passive EMR Systems
include:
• High Resolution: e.g., QuickBird, IKONOS & OrbView 3
• Medium Resolution: e.g., SPOT MS & IRS (Indian Remote Sensing
Satellite)
• Low Resolution: e.g., Landsat (MSS, TM, ETM+) & Terra ASTER
• Coarse Resolution: e.g., Terra & Aqua MODIS