Developing a tool for MABEL (Multiple Altimeter Beam Experimental LiDAR) data processing using IDL

The Earth is changing continually with changes in the global climate making it imperative to
study these changes. NASA’s Ice Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) is a spaceborne LiDAR
system which uses photon-time data to obtain elevations above the Earth. This study uses Multiple Altimeter
Beam Experimental Lidar (MABEL) data which is a model of the Advanced Topographical Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS)
to be incorporated into ICESat-2, to provide the end-user, an efficacious interactive tool to de-noise
the noisy airborne photon data and visualize
it graphically. A three-level de-noising methodology was adapted. In the
first, statistical level, 3σ-elimination was performed. For the second level, line de-noising, all
photons having more than one elevation for the same distance were removed. The last and third
de-noising method is fine denoising, in which a co-ordinate geometry was applied to compute
respective photon densities within an ellipse, was implemented. Elimination of noise photon
was then carried out according to a density threshold. The statistical de-noising removed a few
noisy data but were inconsequential in some cases. The iterative refinement cleared noise step
by step while leaving the actual feature intact. The interface will provide an efficacious way
for the end-user to perform the above-mentioned tasks with a single tool. The main purpose or
advantage of this tool is to remove noise of any complex MABEL data. The de-noised data can
be further used obtain landform features and when done periodically, can be instrumental in
studying changes in the area of interest. There is no such tool to remove noise from MABEL
data. Developing this tool in IDL has a purpose that the most famous geospatial analytics
software like ENVI is written in IDL. So, this tool would be compatible with ENVI.

MSC GIS 2017-2019 INT Radhakrishnan T