Abstract
Accurately detecting and localizing high-speed aircraft is significant for monitoring global flight activities, conducting searches, and performing emergency rescues. Typically, the spatial position of an air target is obtained through active communication or multi-satellite observation. Here, we propose a multimodal flight altitude inversion method using a single thermal infrared payload (SDGSAT-1 TIS). Space-based longwave thermal infrared is a passive detection method that can measure the surface thermal radiation of objects and capture radiation differences caused by flying aircraft against the background, thereby providing an opportunity for their detection and location. Considering geographic location, time, climate, and aircraft size, we establish a framework to integrate the radiation transmission model with three-spectral-band remote sensing data. This proposed framework elucidates the relationship between flight altitude and top-of-atmosphere radiance, realizing the inversion from thermal infrared remote sensing images to altitude. Validated on 100 aircraft, the proposed framework achieved an average altitude measurement accuracy of 0.508 km compared with Flightradar24. This research provides a unique solution for the all-time passive localization of air targets.
Published Version
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