The NIR reflectance box (NoX) is an unique instrument, enabling the continuous observation of Up-welling and Down-welling radiance in the visible near infrared region. It measures spectral data of high resolution (approximately 3 nm), yet is built to withstand the hazards of a permanent outdoor installation.
It represents the evolution of prototypes such as the Multiplexer Radiometer Irradiometer (MRI), SFLUOR box and SIF-System developed from a collaboration between Jülich Research Center and the Remote Sensing of Environmental Dynamics Laboratory of the University Milano Bicocca. The basic routines of the FloX are based on SPECY (Forschungszentrum Jülich, IBG-2: Plant Sciences).
The NoX is specifically designed to measure Radiance and reflectance under natural light conditions. Therefore the design is optimized to achieve maximum efficiency in terms of: Signal to Noise Ratio, Spectral Resolution and quick acquisition time. Different combination of spectrometers can be selected by the users (e.g. SR4, FLAME, QEpro for the visible range. FLAME-NIR or NIRquest for the NIR range. All from Ocean Optics). Upward and downward channels of the NoX allow to measure the solar irradiance (making use of JB COS) and the reflected radiance from the canopy. In order to keep a stable level of dark current the spectrometers are embedded in a temperature controlled housing. The signal-to-noise is maximized thanks to accurate automatic optimization of the signal of both channels and a high performance optical light throughput.