Toward a Standardized Encoding of Remote Sensing Geo-Positioning Sensor Models

Abstract

Geolocation information is an important feature of remote sensing image data that is captured through a variety of passive or active observation sensors, such as push-broom electro-optical sensor, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), light detection and ranging (LIDAR) and sound navigation and ranging (SONAR). As a fundamental processing step to locate an image, geo-positioning is used to determine the ground coordinates of an object from image coordinates. A variety of sensor models have been created to describe geo-positioning process. In particular, Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has defined the Sensor Model Language (SensorML) specification in its Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) initiative to describe sensors including the geo-positioning process. It has been realized using syntax from the extensible markup language (XML). Besides, two standards defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ISO 19130-1 and ISO 19130-2, introduced a physical sensor model, a true replacement model, and a correspondence model for the geo-positioning process. However, a standardized encoding for geo-positioning sensor models is still missing for the remote sensing community. Thus, the interoperability of remote sensing data between application systems cannot be ensured. In this paper, a standardized encoding of remote sensing geo-positioning sensor models is introduced. It is semantically based on ISO 19130-1 and ISO 19130-2, and syntactically based on OGC SensorML. It defines a cross mapping of the sensor models defined in ISO 19130-1 and ISO 19130-2 to the SensorML, and then proposes a detailed encoding method to finalize the XML schema (an XML schema here is the structure to define an XML document), which will become a profile of OGC SensorML. It seamlessly unifies the sensor models defined in ISO 19130-1, ISO 19130-2, and OGC SensorML. By enabling a standardized description of sensor models used to produce remote sensing data, this standard is very promising in promoting data interoperability, mobility, and integration in the remote sensing domain.