R Package for harmonic modelling of time-series data

R Package for harmonic modelling of time-series data

April 23, 2020

Sentinel-2 NDVI time-series over the Steigerwald. Left: Original satellite scenes after cloud, cloud shadow and snow maksing. Right: Interpolated time-series using a harmonic modelling.

In order to fully exploit the monitoring potential of the satellite systems, challenges such as noise and data gaps must be effectively addressed. These quality losses are mainly caused by sensor artifacts, clouds, cloud shadows and other weather conditions (Verbesselt et al., 2012). In the context of time series analysis, harmonic modeling is a powerful tool to fill these gaps and reduce noise by smoothing the original signal (de Jong et al., 2011).

For that purpose, I created an R-package rHarmonics which enables the user to perform a harmonic analysis on a given time-series data set.

To calculate the harmonic fitted curve of a periodic signal, ordinary least squares regressions are computed using coupled sine and cosine curves on time-series data. The underlying algorithm which is based on Shumway & Stoffer (2017) equations 4.1 – 4.2 can be seen below:

MODIS NDVI time-series data together with a harmonic fitted curve using 3 cylces per year.



Literature:

de Jong, R., de Bruin, S., de Wit, A., Schaepman, M. E., & Dent, D. L. (2011). Analysis of monotonic greening and browning trends from global ndvi time-series. Remote Sensing of Environment, 115 (2), 692–702.

Shumway, R. H., & Stoffer, D. S. (2017). Time series analysis and its applications: with r examples. Springer.

Verbesselt, J., Zeileis, A., & Herold, M. (2012). Near real-time disturbance detection using satellite image time series. Remote Sensing of Environment, 123 , 98–108.

follow us and share it on:

you may also like:

Hackathon within the Super-Test-Site Project

Hackathon within the Super-Test-Site Project

What happens when researchers and developers sit down together to explore a multidisciplinary urban dataset? Our researchers from the EORC joined a hackathon that took place within the Super-Test-Site Project, organised by Prof. Dr. Gunther Gust from the Chair of...

Field Days in the Oberpfalz: Exploring FSME Hotspots

Field Days in the Oberpfalz: Exploring FSME Hotspots

On April 17th and 29th our researchers Sofía and Ariane had two field days in the areas around Amberg and Schwandorf, one of Germany's most well-known TBE (tick-borne encephalitis) risk regions. They joined Prof. Dr. Gerhard Dobler and Dr. Lidia Chitimia-Dobler from...

Johannes Mast has successfully defended his PhD Thesis

Johannes Mast has successfully defended his PhD Thesis

Johannes Mast defended his PhD Thesis titled "Geographical Migration Research using Remote Sensing and Social Media Data" at the Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg successfully on the 29th of April 2026. We congratulate him very much for his...

EAGLEs at SANParks – Kruger National Park

EAGLEs at SANParks – Kruger National Park

Our EAGLEs Sebastian Rothaug and Clemens Schömig just finished their 2+ months for the internship/InnoLab in Kruger National Park. The work was done with SANparks, Dr. Coetsee and Dr. Wigley within a year-long collaboration of EORC researcher Dr. Bevanda. The...

Fieldwork in Focus: Our New “Hex Wall” Installation

Fieldwork in Focus: Our New “Hex Wall” Installation

At EORC, the transition from physical reality to digital analysis is a core part of our methodology. While our primary output consists of Earth Observation data the foundation of this work is laid in the field. To document this essential aspect of our research, we...

Share This