Large, durable and low-cost reflectance standard for field remote sensing applications

The development of the Canopy Pasture Probe (CAPP), for acquisition of in situ pasture canopy reflectance factor, required a suitable large reflectance standard. Spectralon® has been successfully used worldwide as a reflectance standard, but large panels (greater than 20 cm diameter) suitable for use with the CAPP are very expensive. In this context, a large, durable and low cost reflectance standard has been evaluated for use with an Analytical Spectral Devices FieldSpec® Pro FR spectroradiometer attached to the CAPP. In this study various ceramic tiles, barium sulphate powders, white paint and a Kodak card were tested. The material which best suited the requirements for a reflectance standard was the white ceramic tile sourced from Argentina. This tile produced around 80% total reflectance with reasonable uniformity over the spectral range analysed (400-2400 nm); and the vegetation spectra acquired using this tile as reference sample were very similar in shape to the vegetation spectra acquired using spectralon® as a white reference.