Analysis on quantitative relationship between design parameters of infrared remote sensor and NIIRS

Abstract

The National Imagery Interpretability Rating Scale (NIIRS) is a 10-level scale (0 to 9) of imagery interpretability, these criteria indicate the level of information that can be extracted from an image of a given interpretability, the lowest is Level 0 and the highest is Level 9. The General Image Quality Equation (GIQE) is a model that relates physical parameters of an imaging sensor to NIIRS rating of the sensors image products. The scale has become an important tool for defining image requirements, selecting and tasking imaging system. In this paper, we first introduce briefly NIIRS and GIQE, and make an initial analysis about the factors affecting perceived interpretability of imagery, such as ground sample distance(GSD), relative edge response(RER), height overshoot(H), noise gain(G), and signal-to-noise ratio(SNR). Then, the design parameters of infrared remote sensor and GSD, RER, H, SNR, and NIIRS scale quantitative relation is first determined, and the simulation curve of NIIRS scale versus R is presented. Finally, the analysis between NIIRS scale and GSD, RER, H and G/SNR shows that it is evident that the GSD and RER are the dominant terms in the equation, and that the overshoot H and the G/SNR have a much smaller impact. Comparisons with calculation results show that the research can provide preliminary theory evidence for the optimum design of remote-sensors although more validation experiments are needed.