Remote Sensing Technologies, Applications and Perspectives at Night: Nightlight, Nighttime Thermal Infrared and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) (Second Edition)
A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2026 | Viewed by 120
Special Issue Editors
Interests: machine learning- and deep learning-based multi-source remote sensing algorithms and applications with a focus on the integration of Optical, SAR, and nightlight remote sensing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: marine fish communities; marine plankton; remote sensing; global change
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: remote sensing image processing; land use and land cover change; environmental change; urbanization
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Daytime observations of reflected solar radiation in the visible spectrum have long served as a cornerstone of Earth observation. However, the nighttime environment remains comparatively underexplored due to the inherent limitations of optical sensors in the absence of solar illumination. This gap limits our ability to fully capture diurnal dynamics and understand key atmospheric, environmental, and human-driven processes that evolve continuously throughout the day–night cycle. Recent advances in remote sensing technologies—including low-light imaging, thermal infrared sensing, microwave and SAR systems, and multi-source data integration—have opened new opportunities for observing the Earth at night. In parallel, rapid developments in artificial intelligence, particularly in low-light image enhancement, representation learning, and cross-modal data fusion, are enabling significant improvements in signal recovery, feature extraction, and information integration under low-illumination conditions. These developments jointly enable more comprehensive monitoring of weather, climate, ecosystems, and human activities at night, offering critical insights that are not accessible through daytime observations alone. Building upon these advances, this Special Issue (second edition) aims to present a new generation of studies that explore night-time remote sensing from multiple perspectives, including sensor innovation, methodological development, and diverse applications. We particularly encourage contributions that demonstrate how multi-sensor data fusion, physics-informed approaches, and AI-driven analytical frameworks can enhance the observability and understanding of nocturnal Earth system processes.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Advances in night-time remote sensing technologies and sensor systems;
- AI-driven low-light image enhancement and information retrieval;
- Multi-source and multi-modal data fusion for nocturnal Earth observation (e.g., optical, thermal, SAR);
- Applications in weather, climate, hydrology, agriculture, and urban systems;
- Night-time environmental monitoring and extreme event detection;
- Human activity, energy use, and socio-economic dynamics from night-time data;
- Challenges, uncertainties, and future perspectives in night-time Earth observation and AI integration.
This Special Issue seeks to provide a comprehensive platform for showcasing cutting-edge research and to promote the integration of night-time observations and AI methodologies into next-generation Earth system science.
Dr. Di Liu
Dr. Jiajun Li
Dr. Chengbin Deng
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- night-time remote sensing (nightlight, thermal infrared, and SAR)
- low-light earth observation
- artificial intelligence for night-time remote sensing
- nighttime environmental monitoring
- extreme event detection
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