Automatic Radiometric Calibration of Gaofen-1/WFV Cameras and Cross Validation with Sentinel-2/MSI

Abstract

The Chinese Gaofen-1(GF-1) high resolution satellite loaded with four Wide Field of View (WFV) cameras provides observations with high temporal and spatial resolutions. However, the radiometric calibration accuracy of the GF1/WFV should be given when being used to monitoring the earth. In this study, radiometric calibration of the GF1/WFV was carried out first with automatic instrumented Baotou site. Then, the determined radiometric calibration coefficients were cross validated with the MultiSpectral Imager (MSI) onboard the Sentinel-2 satellite. The preliminary results show that the radiometric performances of the four WFV cameras are relatively stable with averaged relative difference less than -1.85%. The standard deviation of the radiometric calibration coefficients during the period from April 2019 to June 2020 is 0.0056, 0.0081, 0.0072, and 0.0076 with respect to the blue, green, red, and near infrared channel. The results of cross validation with Sentinel-2/MSI suggest that the averaged relative difference is -3.16%, -4.28%, -1.15%, and -3.22% with respect to the blue, green, red, and near infrared channel. The results of cross-validation demonstrate that radiometric calibration of the GF-1/WFV cameras using automatic instrumented Baotou site is feasible and operational. And, it is also essential and necessary to update the on-orbit radiometric calibration coefficients of GF-1/WFV cameras during its' entire lifetime for further quantitative application.