Vegetation indices using the reflectance of selected wavelength, associating with the monitoring purpose such as identifying the progress of crop growth, on the vegetation canopy surface is widely used in the digital agriculture technology. However, t...
Vegetation indices using the reflectance of selected wavelength, associating with the monitoring purpose such as identifying the progress of crop growth, on the vegetation canopy surface is widely used in the digital agriculture technology. However, the surface reflectance anisotropy can distort the true value of vegetation index related to the condition of surface, even though the surface property be unchanged. That causes difficulty to observe accurately crop growth on the monitoring system. In this study, a simple type goniometer was designed to measure the reflectance from the anisotropic surface according to various zeniths and azimuths of sun and viewing sensor in the field. On the tarp like as Lambertian surface, the reflectance of Blue, Green, Red, Near-Infrared band was similar to the tarps' reflectance properties. However, the reflectance was slightly overestimated in the cloudy day. The relative difference values of vegetation indices on grass were overestimated for the forward viewing and underestimated for the backward viewing. In addition, enhanced vegetation index (EVI) showed less sensitive according to the positions of sun and sensor viewing. Field observation with a goniometer will be helpful to understand the anisotropy characteristics on the vegetation surface.