Abstract
The scanning infrared focal plane array (IRFPA) suffers from stripe-like non-uniformity due to the usage of many detectors, especially when working with a large time scale. Typical calibration systems tend to block the sensor aperture and expose the detectors to an on-board blackbody calibration source. They may also point at deep space. Full aperture calibration sources of this type tend to be large and expensive. To address these problems, a dynamic non-uniformity correction (NUC) method is proposed based on a modulated internal calibration device. By employing the on-board calibration device to generate a dynamic scene and fully integrating the system characteristics of the scanning IRFPA into the scene-based non-uniformity correction (SBNUC) algorithm, on-orbit high dynamic range NUC is achieved without blocking the field of view. Here we simulate an internal calibration system alternative, where a dynamic calibration signal is superimposed on the normal imagery, thus requiring no mechanisms and a smaller size. This method using this type of calibrator shows that when the sensor is pointing at deep space for calibration, it provides an effective non-uniformity correction of the imagery. After performing the proposed method, the NU of the two evaluation images was reduced from the initial 12.99% and 8.72% to less than 2%. Compared to other on-board NUC methods that require an extended reference blackbody source, this proposed approach has the advantages of miniaturization, a short calibration time, and strong adaptability.
Highlights
The infrared focal plane array (IRFPA) has wide-ranging applications in the areas of remote sensing, security monitoring, electronic surveillance, and scientific research, among other fields
We proposed to obtain the non-uniformity correction (NUC) parameters based on the local constant-statistical NUC (LCS-NUC) algorithm
The verification takes the following steps: 1. the system superimposes various influencing factors in the imaging scene based on the star-space scene and generates simulated images for the NUC; 2. the system implements the MICS-NUC algorithm on the generated simulated images; and 3. we analyze and discuss the NUC results
Summary
The infrared focal plane array (IRFPA) has wide-ranging applications in the areas of remote sensing, security monitoring, electronic surveillance, and scientific research, among other fields. The linear time-delay integral IRFPA (TDI-IRFPA), a typical configuration, is suitable for space-based remote sensing applications This array can perform on-orbit search imaging at a fixed angular velocity and can meet the needs of required observation frequency, scanning range, resolution, and the capacity for high-dynamic-range (HDR) imaging, and other requirements of the infrared remote sensing system. Characterization of a sensor’s radiometric domain is key to understanding how well the sensor responds on an absolute and/or relative scale [6] This NU changes slowly with factors such as the operating time, ambient temperature, shock, and space radiation, in the HDR sensor of the infrared remote sensing system, in which there are significant nonlinear response properties, making its NU more challenging to correct. The sensors must be periodically re-calibrated on-orbit to obtain high-quality imaging [7]
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