Understanding variations in remote sensing data with illumination and sensor angle changes is important in agricultural crop monitoring. This research investigated field bidirectional reflectance factor (BRF) in crop differentiation and PROSAIL leaf area index (LAI) estimation. BRF and LAI data were collected for planophile and erectophile crops at three growth stages. In the solar principal plane, BRF differed optimally at 860 nm 60 days after planting (DAP) for canola and pea, at 860 nm 45 and 60 DAP for wheat and barley, and at 860 nm and 670 nm 45 and 60 DAP for planophiles versus erectophiles. The field BRF data helped better understand PROSAIL LAI estimation. NDVI was preferred for estimating LAI, however the MTVI2 vegetation index showed high sensitivity to view angles, particularly for erectophiles. The hotspot was important for crop differentiation and LAI. Availability of more along-track, off-nadir looking spaceborne sensors was recommended for agricultural crop monitoring. / xiii, 161 leaves : ill., map ; 29 cm

Recently, the high radiance of synchrotron sources was used to enhance FTIR spectrometer performance. However, excessive channel spectra when synchrotron sources are used degrade the quality of retrieved spectral parameters. In the research reported in this thesis, seven different techniques for handling channel spectra were investigated. These techniques were used to reduce channel spectra for a test group of seven samples of CO2 mixed with air recorded using the synchrotron source at the Canadian Light Source. The increases in signal to noise ratio (SNR) of spectra handled with each technique were calculated. SNR results showed that transmission spectra, produced using synthetic background spectra with simulated channel spectra, achieved the highest SNR improvement. However, when the spectra groups were fitted using nonlinear least square fit algorithm, the technique using channel spectra fitting produced the smallest fitting residual. Moreover, the retrieved intensities and air broadening coefficients of 21 spectral lines showed that the spectral fitting technique produced the most accurate values as compared to the HITRAN 2008 database. Although the spectral fitting technique was accurate in retrieving spectral line parameters, applying the technique at wider spectral ranges was less accurate. A modification to the channel spectra fitting technique by performing iterations of channel fitting was introduced to process wider spectral ranges. Carbon dioxide laser band I centred at 961 wavenumber was analyzed using 24 spectra recorded under different experimental conditions. The intensity and air-and self-broadening coefficients were retrieved for 48 spectral lines with average deviations from HITRAN database values of 2.11%, 1.25% and 4.14%, respectively, using the Voigt profile. These average deviations lie within the uncertainty limits listed by the database. The deviation between our results and other results reported in the literature were also examined and it is found to be also within the range of HITRAN uncertainties. The effect of errors in fitting channel spectra parameters was examined and found to be mitigated by the inclusion of channel-free spectra in the multispectral fit. / xiv, 134 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm

<p dir="ltr">Imaging and sensing through opaque scattering media is a topic of broad interest with a wide range of applications. Methods are impacted by speckle, which refers to grainy patterns of bright and dark spots resulting from coherent interference as light propagates through a randomly scattering medium. This phenomenon is most often considered undesirable in applications. However, it is possible to leverage the information contained in speckle patterns to image hidden objects. In practice, most methods are limited to situations in which the scattering medium is either thin or weakly scattering. This thesis explores a motion-based coherent imaging and sensing method originally developed by prior researchers. This technique takes advantage of heavy scatter and object motion, with no theoretical limit on the amount of scatter. In this method, intensity correlations are performed on speckle images taken with the object at different spatial locations. Prior research led to the development of a theory that describes the relationship between speckle intensity correlations and the object's geometry. This thesis presents substantial new understanding pertaining to the theory that allows for the imaging of general objects in heavily scattering media. Additionally, it is shown that two nominally identical objects can be distinguished through speckle intensity correlations over far-subwavelength translation distances, implying access to the microstructure of objects. Finally, the combining of this method with diffusion-based localization is demonstrated, providing a way to apply this imaging and sensing method without prior knowledge of the object's relative spatial locations.</p>