An advanced fluorescence LIDAR system for the acquisition of interleaved active (LIF) and passive (SIF) fluorescence measurements on vegetation

Fluorescence is regarded as a valuable tool to investigate the eco-physiological status of vegetation. Chlorophyll a, which emits a typical fluorescence in the red/far-red region of the e.m. spectrum, plays a key role in the photosynthetic process and its fluorescence is considered an effective proxy of photosynthetic activity of plants. Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) has been studied for several decades both at leaf- and canopy-level by means of optical fibers-coupled instrumentation and fluorescence LIDAR systems. On the other hand, Solar-Induced Fluorescence (SIF) has been the object of several scientific studies quite recently, with the aim to investigate the feasibility of measuring the fluorescence of vegetation using passive spectroradiometers in view of global scale monitoring from satellite platforms. This paper presents the main technical features and preliminary tests of a fluorescence LIDAR, recently upgraded to acquire maps of interleaved LIF and SIF measurements at canopy level. In-house developed electronics and software permits the acquisition of interleaved LIF and SIF spectra by switching on/off the laser, the selection of the suitable grating, the setting of the integration time and the synchronization of the Intensified CCD (ICCD) gate opening time. For each pixel of the map, a fluorescence dataset can be acquired containing a LIF spectrum - from 570 nm to 830 nm with a spectral resolution of 0.5 nm - and radiance spectra from 685.53 nm to 690.30 nm with subnanometric spectral resolution containing the molecular oxygen O2-B telluric absorption band. The latter can be exploited for polynomial regression data fit and SIF retrieval.