Radiometric Calibration Coefficients Research Articles

Vicarious Radiometric Calibration of the Multispectral Imager Onboard SDGSAT-1 over the Dunhuang Calibration Site, China

The multispectral imager (MII), onboard the Sustainable Development Science Satellite 1 (SDGSAT-1), performs detailed terrestrial change detection and coastal monitoring. SDGSAT-1 was launched at 2:19 UTC on 5 November 2021, as the world’s first Earth science satellite to serve the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. A vicarious radiometric calibration experiment was conducted at the Dunhuang calibration site (Gobi Desert, China) on 14 December 2021. In-situ measurements of ground reflectance, aerosol optical depth (AOD), total columnar water vapor, radiosonde data, and diffuse-to-global irradiance (DG) ratio were performed to predict the top-of-atmosphere radiance by the reflectance-, irradiance-, and improved irradiance-based methods using the moderate resolution atmospheric transmission model. The MII calibration coefficients were calculated by dividing the top-of-atmosphere radiance by the average digital number value of the image. The radiometric calibration coefficients calculated by the three calibration methods were reliable (average relative differences: 2.20% (reflectance-based vs. irradiance-based method) and 1.43% (reflectance-based vs. improved irradiance-based method)). The total calibration uncertainties of the reflectance-, irradiance-, and improved irradiance-based methods were 2.77–5.23%, 3.62–5.79%, and 3.50–5.23%, respectively. The extra DG ratio measurements in the latter two methods did not improve the calibration accuracy for AODs ≤ 0.1. The calibrated MII images were verified using Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Sentinel-2A MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) images. The retrieved ground reflectances of the MII over different surface types were cross-compared with those of OLI and MSI using the FAST Line-of-sight Atmospheric Analysis of Hypercubes software. The MII retrievals differed by <0.0075 (7.13%) from OLI retrievals and <0.0084 (7.47%) from MSI retrievals for calibration coefficients from the reflectance-based method; <0.0089 (7.57%) from OLI retrievals and <0.0111 (8.65%) from MSI retrievals for the irradiance-based method; and <0.0082 (7.33%) from OLI retrievals and <0.0101 (8.59%) from MSI retrievals for the improved irradiance-based method. Thus, our findings support the application of SDGSAT-1 data.

Radiometric Calibration of GF5-02 Advanced Hyperspectral Imager Based on RadCalNet Baotou Site

In this study, an on-orbit radiometric calibration campaign of the GF5-02 AHSI was performed at the RadCalNet Baotou site, based on the automated observation of reflectance and atmospheric parameters of a 300 m × 300 m homogeneous desert area. The consistency of the radiometric calibration coefficients was validated both at the Dunhuang calibration site and the Baotou site. The average relative difference between the calibrated top-of-atmospheric (TOA) radiance and the predicted TOA radiance were less than 7%. The R2 of these two TOA radiances were all higher than 0.99. These results showed that the accuracy of calibration coefficients could meet the requirements of hyperspectral quantification applications. The uncertainty of GF5-02 AHSI radiometric calibration was 6.18%. This study also demonstrated that automated observation data of the Baotou site were reliable for high-frequency radiometric calibration and radiometric performance monitoring of GF5-02 AHSI.

On-Orbit Absolute Radiometric Calibration and Validation of ZY3-02 Satellite Multispectral Sensor.

This study described the on-orbit vicarious radiometric calibration of Chinese civilian high-resolution stereo mapping satellite ZY3-02 multispectral imager (MUX). The calibration was based on gray-scale permanent artificial targets, and multiple radiometric calibration tarpaulins (tarps) using a reflectance-based approach between July and September 2016 at Baotou calibration site in China was described. The calibration results reveal a good linear relationship between DN and TOA radiances of ZY3-02 MUX. The uncertainty of this radiometric calibration was 4.33%, indicating that radiometric coefficients of ZY3-02 MUX are reliable. A detailed discussion on the validation analysis of the comparison results between the different radiometric calibration coefficients is presented in this paper. To further validate the reliability of the three coefficients, the calibrated ZY3-02 MUX was compared with Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI). The results also indicate that radiometric characteristics of ZY3-02 MUX imagery are reliable and highly accurate for quantitative applications.

A Spectrum Extension Approach for Radiometric Calibration of the Advanced Hyperspectral Imager Aboard the Gaofen-5 Satellite

The advanced hyperspectral imager (AHSI) is one of the sensors aboard the Chinese Gaofen-5 (GF-5) satellite, possessing characteristics of high spatial and spectral resolution, as well as width swath. To better understand the radiometric performance of GF-5/AHIS after its launch, this article presents an on-orbit radiometric calibration approach for AHSI visible and near-infrared (VNIR) and shortwave infrared (SWIR) sensors from field automatic observations with a field spectrometer in the absence of SWIR measurements. A spectrum extension method was proposed to extend the retrieved surface hyperspectral reflectance in the VNIR spectral ranges to SWIR by incorporating the historical hyperspectral reflectance library. The radiometric calibration coefficients of GF-5/AHSI were calculated by linear fitting of the observed digital number (DN) values with GF-5/AHSI and predicted at-sensor radiances with MODTRAN 5 based on extended hyperspectral surface reflectance. Comparisons with onboard calibration results were also performed, and the averaged relative differences were within 5% with <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1\delta $ </tex-math></inline-formula> standard deviations less than 10% for most bands, except for those in the atmospheric absorption and low signal-to-noise ratio bands. The comparison results indicate that the on-site radiometric calibration results are consistent with the onboard results, and the operational on-orbit radiometric calibration approach is reliable in the case that there are no measurements in the SWIR spectra range. The on-orbit radiometric performance of GF-5/AHSI rapidly degraded during the first several months after its launch and then tended to be relatively stable.

Vicarious Radiometric Calibration of the AHSI Instrument Onboard ZY1E on Dunhuang Radiometric Calibration Site

The Advanced Hyperspectral Imager (AHSI) is the second hyperspectral imager of China, which is also one of the most important payloads onboard the ZY1E satellite. In order to monitor the radiometric calibration status since its launch on 12 Sep. 2019, and thus provide supplementary on-board radiometric calibration, this paper conducts several vicarious radiometric calibration experiments for the ZY-1E AHSI. Five satellite observations over Dunhuang radiometric calibration site, one of the most relevant China Radiometric Calibration Sites (CRCS), were used. Surface reflectance, radiosonde data, aerosol optical depth (AOD) loading, and water vapor content were used to simulate the top of atmosphere (TOA) radiance at the entrance pupil of the satellite via MODerate resolution atmospheric TRANsmission (MODTRAN). Our results show that the vicarious radiometric calibration coefficients are relatively constant with the official coefficients: the mean relative differences are 5.55%, 5.64%, 7.02%, 5.07%, and 5.30% on 11 Jan, 17 Jan, 12 Feb, 07 May, and 23 Nov, 2021, respectively. The vicarious radiometric calibration coefficients were found in good agreement with the official ones according to the validation analysis based on different surface types, i.e., water and vegetation. Uncertainties of vicarious radiometric calibration due to AOD assumptions, AOD measurements, water vapor measurements, radiosonde data measurements, relative spectral response (RSR) shifts and surface reflectance measurements are also discussed in detail. The obtained results show that the ZY-1E AHSI exhibits good on-orbit radiometric status.

The Operational Inflight Radiometric Uniform Calibration of a Directional Polarimetric Camera

The directional polarimetric camera (DPC) on-board the GF-5A satellite is designed for atmospheric or water color detection, which requires high radiometric accuracy. Therefore, in-flight calibration is a prerequisite for its inversion application. For large field optical sensors, it is very challenging to ensure the consistency of radiation detection in the whole field of view in the space environment. Our work proposes a vicarious in-flight calibration method based on sea non-equipment sites (visible bands) and land non-equipment sites (all bands). Combined with environmental parameters and radiation transmission calculations, we evaluated the radiation detection accuracy of the 0° to 60° view zenith angle of the DPC in each band. Our calibration method is based on the single-day normalized radiance data measured by the DPC. Through data selection, enough calibration samples can be obtained in a single day (the number of desert samples is more than 5000, and the number of calibration samples of the ocean is more than 2.8×106). The measurements are compared with the simulation of 6SV VRT code or look-up tables. The massive amount of data averages the uncertainty of a single-point calculation. Although the uncertainty of a single sample is significant, the final fitting of the curve of the variation in the radiometric calibration coefficient with the observation angle can still keep the root mean squared error at approximately 2–3% or even lower, and for visible bands, the calibration results for both ocean sites and desert sites are in good agreement regarding the non-uniformity of the sensor.

Cross-calibration of Chinese Gaofen-5 thermal infrared images and its improvement on land surface temperature retrieval

Thermal infrared (TIR) remote sensing technology is capable of acquiring large-scale land surface temperature (LST), which is a key factor in the energy exchange between land surface and atmosphere. The visible and infrared multispectral sensor (VIMS) equipped in the Chinese Gaofen-5 (GF-5) satellite can obtain four channels of TIR images with a 40 m spatial resolution. However, due to the change of working environment, the TIR sensor suffers a low-accurate radiometric calibration that needs improvement. This paper puts forward a new cross-calibration for GF-5/VIMS TIR images by linking the top of the atmosphere (TOA) radiance of the vertical angle MODIS observation with the GF-5/VIMS image to estimate the radiometric calibration coefficients, Gain and Offset. To verify the recalibration performance, a new nonlinear two-channel split-window (SW) algorithm and a light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM) method which is used to refine LST from the SW algorithm by minimizing the residuals, were developed for the recalibrated GF-5/VIMS TIR 3 and TIR 4 channels. The radiometric cross-calibration algorithm and the optimized SW algorithm were applied to real GF-5/VIMS TIR images. The validation results showed that the brightness temperature and LST were improved significantly, and the LST retrieval error was reduced greatly to 1.79 K after recalibration, indicating a large improvement of the LST retrieval for GF-5/VIMS TIR image using the proposed cross-calibration and SW algorithms.

Radiometric Cross-Calibration of GF-4/IRS Based on MODIS Measurements

GaoFen-4 (GF-4) infrared spectrum (IRS) camera has a special spectral band located in the mid-wave infrared spectrum with the wavelength ranging from 3.50 to 4.10 μm. It is very important for forest fire-detection and other quantitative remote sensing applications at a high spatial resolution of 400 m. Due to the similarity of the spectral characteristics, the thermal emissive band 20 (3.660-3.840 μm) and 22 (3.929-3.989 μm) of medium resolution imaging spectrometer (MODIS) are taken as the reference bands for the radiometric cross-calibration of the GF-4/IRS camera. The time difference between selected GF-4/IRS and MODIS images at the Qinghai Lake and Se lincuo Lake test sites is less than one hour. After spatial matching, single-band and dual-band spectral matching methods are proposed in this article. Then, the DN value of GF-4 image is linearly fitted to the radiance of the corresponding MODIS image to obtain the radiometric calibration coefficients of GF-4/IRS camera. The validation results show that the cross-calibration coefficients calculated by integrating the measurement of two MODIS bands with the mean value spectral matching approach has the highest radiometric calibration consistency with the official calibration coefficients.

Intercalibration of FY-3D MWTS Against S-NPP ATMS Based on Microwave Radiative Transfer Model

Accurate and stable in-orbit radiometric calibration of a satellite instrument is fundamental to Earth geophysical parameter estimation. This article addresses the intercalibration of the microwave temperature sounder (MWTS) on the Chinese second-generation polar-orbiting meteorological satellite, Fengyun 3D (FY-3D), against the advanced technology microwave sounder (ATMS) aboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite. First, ocean and land microwave radiative transfer models (RTM) are constructed by combining the sea and land surface emissivity models and atmospheric absorption model, as well as the intercalibration equations. Then, the MWTS and ATMS observations are resampled into a 1° × 1° regular grid space, and the matching brightness temperatures (TBs) under clear-sky/near clear-sky conditions are collected. Next, the TBs at top-of-atmosphere are simulated using the RTM and the fifth generation of European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast atmospheric reanalysis (ERA5) data. After that, the double differences between FY-3D MWTS and S-NPP ATMS and the theoretical observations in FY-3D MWTS channels are calculated. Finally, the radiometric calibration coefficients of FY-3D MWTS are successfully derived from the observations of S-NPP ATMS by linear fits on the matching TBs. In contrast to the ATMS measurements, FY-3D MWTS observations are generally overestimated, and the in-orbit radiometric calibration errors (mean ± standard deviation at the mean) are 1.83 ± 1.45, 0.45 ± 0.94, 1.87 ± 0.60, −0.20 ± 0.36, −0.02 ± 0.37, 0.19 ± 0.24, 1.69 ± 0.28, 2.25 ± 0.29, 1.97 ± 0.33, 1.74 ± 0.42, 2.84 ± 0.42, 0.07 ± 0.65, and 0.32 ± 1.18 K in FY-3D MWTS channels 1–13, respectively. The results with Hewison's semi-empirical land surface emissivity (LSE) model and the results with LSEs derived from the coincident ATMS observations at 50.3 GHz are consistent. Moreover, the intercalibration results obtained by the RTM in this work also agree well with the results obtained by the community radiative transfer model.

Polarization Radiometric Calibration in Laboratory for a Channeled Spectropolarimeter

The process of radiometric calibration would be coupled with the polarization properties of an optical system for spectropolarimetry, which would have significant influences on reconstructed Stokes parameters. In this paper, we propose a novel polarization radiometric calibration model that decouples the radiometric calibration coefficient and polarization properties of an optical system. The alignment errors of the polarization module and the variation of the retardations at different fields of view are considered and calibrated independently. According to these calibration results, the input Stokes parameters at different fields of view can be reconstructed accurately through the proposed model. Simulations are performed for the presented calibration and reconstruction methods, which indicate that the measurement accuracy of polarization information is improved compared with the traditional undecoupled calibration method.

Onboard absolute radiometric calibration and validation of the satellite calibration spectrometer on HY-1C.

As the reference radiometric calibration standard of sensors on the Haiyang-1C (HY-1C) satellite platform, the satellite calibration spectrometer (SCS) is equipped with an onboard calibration system composed of double solar diffusers and an erbium-doped diffuser to monitor the postlaunch radiometric response change. Herein, through onboard calibration data analysis, the calibration diffuser performance remains stable without degradation, and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Terra is adopted as a reference to repeatedly verify onboard radiometric calibration results by selecting different dates and reflectance scenes. The SCS equivalent reflectance is obtained by combining the mean digital number (DN) of the SCS crossing area image with the radiometric calibration coefficient. The spectral reflectance is obtained via interpolation and iteration, which is adopted as the actual MODIS incident pupil spectral reflectance because the small imaging time interval can be ignored and almost vertically observed, and it is convoluted with the MODIS spectral response function to obtain the predicted equivalent reflectance. Validation is completed by comparing the predicted MODIS equivalent reflectance to the measured value based on the onboard calibration coefficient. The results show that (1) the difference between the measured and predicted MODIS band equivalent reflectance is between -0.00466 and 0.0039, and (2) the percentage difference between the measured and predicted MODIS band equivalent reflectance ranges from 4.17% and 1.24%, indicating that the calibration system carried on HY-1C can perform high-precision SCS radiometric calibration, meeting the cross-calibration accuracy requirements of other loads on the same platform.

STATUS OF THE IMAGING SPECTROSCOPY MISSION ENMAP WITH RADIOMETRIC CALIBRATION AND CORRECTION

Abstract. The high-resolution imaging spectroscopy remote sensing mission EnMAP (Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program, enmap.org) covers the spectral range from 420 nm to 2450 nm with a spectral sampling distance varying between 4.8 nm and 12.0 nm comprising 262 spectral bands. We focus on the planned framework concerning radiometry. The expected signal-to-noise ratio at reference radiance level is 500:1 at 495 nm and 150:1 at 2200 nm. The radiometric resolution is 14 bits and an absolute radiometric accuracy of better than 5% is achieved. Radiometric calibration is based on Sun calibration measurements with a fullaperture diffusor for absolute calibration. In addition, relative calibration monitors the instrument during the complete mission lifetime based on an integrating sphere (on the satellite). The fully-automatic on-ground image processing chain considers the derived radiometric calibration coefficients in the radiometric correction which is followed by the orthorectification and atmospheric compensation. Each of the two 2-dimensional detector arrays of the prism-based pushbroom dual-spectrometer works in a dual-gain configuration to cover the complete dynamic range. EnMAP will acquire 30 km in the across-track direction with a ground sampling distance of 30 m and the across-track tilt capability of 30° will enable a target revisit time of less than 4 days. The launch is scheduled for 2021. The high-quality products will be freely available to international scientific users for measuring and analysing diagnostic parameters which describe vital processes on the Earth’s surface.

Orbital Lifetime (2008–2017) Radiometric Calibration and Evaluation of the HJ-1B IRS Thermal Infrared Band

The infrared sensor (IRS) is a payload on the HJ-1B satellite and includes a thermal infrared band (B08). In order to obtain radiometric calibration coefficients and evaluate annual change, this study performed an analysis covering its 10-year orbital lifetime (2008–2017). The cross-calibration of IRS B08 with MODIS was performed using near-simultaneous images over Lake Qinghai, China. The results reveal that the radiometric response of IRS B08 notably changed during its orbital lifetime from year-to-year. The offsets fluctuated more than the gain. The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiance obtained by calibration coefficients in this study was generally in agreement with those obtained by onboard calibrator, within an error range of ±4.00% from 2008 to 2012. The percent difference compared with field validation was within 1.63%. The difference between IRS and MODIS radiance over field validation sites was within ±5%. Approximately a 1% difference occurred between the TOA temperature of IRS and MODIS. The radiometric response of IRS B08 continuously decreased from 2008 to 2013, whereas it fluctuated from 2014 to 2017. Moreover, the DN fluctuated more when the at-aperture radiance was low, although it was more stable at higher radiance.

Radiometric Calibration and Uncertainty Analysis of KOMPSAT-3A Using the Reflectance-Based Method.

In recent years, Korea has sustained consistent access to remote sensed data by launching Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite-3A (KOMPSAT-3A, K3A)—an updated version of the high-resolution KOMPSAT series. This KOMPSAT-3A required calibration and validation (Cal/Val) before and after its launch to enable proper functional characterization and to maintain the veracity of data collected. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) executed the initial prelaunch calibration in the laboratory and we performed the Cal/Val of KOMPSAT-3A during the Launch and Early Operation Phase (LEOP) in the field. Two suitable sites in Korea and Mongolia with stable weather, almost uniform terrain, and near Lambertian diffusion, provided the necessary tarp reflectance to calculate the absolute radiometric calibration coefficients. The surface reflectance was determined using 12 and four well-calibrated reference reflectance tarps employing the FieldSpec® 3(Analytical Spectral Devices Inc., Boulder, CO, USA) Spectroradiometer. Subsequently, the top of atmosphere (TOA) radiance was estimated using radiative transfer code (RTC) software based on the Atmospheric and Topographic Correction (ATCOR). In addition, cross calibration was simultaneously performed at the Libya-4 pseudo invariant calibration site (PICS) for KOMPSAT-3A TOA radiance, using the spectral band adjustment factor (SBAF) compensated Landsat 8 reflectance and the Second Simulation of Satellite Signal in the Solar Spectrum (6S) to compute cross calibration coefficients. The results of the KOMPSAT-3A absolute calibration coefficient show that the R2 values were over 0.99, implying a significant correlation for almost all bands between the TOA radiance and the KOMPSAT-3A spectral band response at both campaign sites. However, this study reveals a difference of less than 5% calibration gains for all bands compared to the prelaunch values, while the cross calibration gain is below 5% in visible bands and above 5% in the near infrared band. An effort to optimize the reliability of the absolute calibration coefficients resorted to the rigorous quantification of uncertainties amongst atmospheric conditions, the digital number (DN), the reflectance tarp, the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF), and ozone levels. Therefore, we presumed that the total uncertainty was 4.27%, which conforms to some published results.

On-orbit radiometric calibration of the optical sensors on-board SuperView-1 satellite using three independent methods.

On-orbit radiometric calibration of the optical sensors on-board SuperView-1 satellites is the foundation for further quantitative applications. A field calibration campaign was orchestrated to radiometrically calibrate the SuperView-1 optical sensors at the Baotou calibration site in China during September 2018. Based on the collected datasets, three independent methods (reflectance-based, radiance-based, and cross-calibration) were used to determine the radiometric calibration coefficients of the SuperView-1 optical sensors with multiple permanent artificial calibration targets. Comparisons of the desert top-of-atmosphere radiance calculated based on the coefficients determined with independent methods were analyzed. Comparison results show that the minimum and maximum relative differences of the radiometrically-calibrated desert TOA radiance between the reflectance-based and radiance-based methods are 1.26% and 4.23% for SV0102 and SV0104, respectively. While, the minimum and maximum relative differences of the radiometrically-calibrated desert TOA radiance between the reflectance-based and radiance-based methods are 0.82% and 6.83% for SV0101 and SV0103, respectively. The reasonably good agreement of the radiometrically calibrated coefficients of the SuperView-1 on-board sensors between these independent methods is encouraging. An uncertainty analysis was also discussed, and the results suggest that the overall uncertainties of the predicted TOA radiance are less than 4.5%, 4.0%, and 5.15% for the reflectance-based, radiance-based, and cross-calibration methods, respectively.

Cross calibration of GF-4 visible and near-infrared sensor with CE-3 VNIS sensor based on lunar

In space-borne remote sensing, the accuracy of radiometric calibration is a key issue for image quality and further data applications. According to the relationship between GF-4 visible and near-infrared (VNIR) sensor and CE-3 VNIS sensor, an applicable cross radiometric calibration method is proposed here based on the observation data of lunar. The cross calibration generates a set of radiometric calibration coefficients for GF-4 VNIR sensor. Two validation experiments are implemented to verify the authenticity and accuracy of cross calibration coefficients: the proposed approach shows a high consistency than previous coefficients by comparing the retrieved reflectance of three calibration sites on lunar, and gets the accuracy of 5.34 %, 3.42 %, 3.49 % and 5.96 % with blue, green, red and near infrared bands of GF-4 by ground-based experiments.

Coupled approach for radiometric calibration and parameter retrieval to improve SPM estimations in turbid inland/coastal waters.

High-precision radiometric calibration (RC) coefficients are required to retrieve reliable water quality parameter products in turbid inland/coastal waters. However, unreliable RC coefficients when satellite sensors lack accurate and in-time RC may lead to pronounced uncertainties in the products through error propagation. To address this issue, a novel approach for estimating water quality parameters, taking suspended particulate matter (SPM) as a case, was proposed by coupling the procedures of RC and SPM model development. The coupled models were established using digital numbers (DNs) from target sensors and "in-situ" SPM measurements from concurrent well-calibrated reference sensors, with the RC coefficients introduced as unknown model parameters. The approach was tested and validated in varied Chinese inland/coastal regions, including the Hongze lake (HL), Taihu lake (TL), and Hangzhou bay (HB). The results show: (1) the DN-based SPM models can achieve a degree of accuracy comparable to reflectance-based SPM models with determination coefficients (R2) of 0.94, 0.92, and 0.72, and root-mean-square errors (RMSE) of 7.02 mg/L, 15.73 mg/L, and 619.2 mg/L for the HL, TL, and HB, respectively, and the biases less than 3% between the derived and official gain RC coefficients; (2) the uncertainty of SPM products increases exponentially as the RC uncertainty increases for exponential reflectance-based SPM models; (3) the DN-based SPM models are less sensitive to the uncertainties of atmospheric correction and RC coefficients, while the reflectance-based models suffer deeply. This study provides encouraging results to the improvement of SPM retrieval using the DN-based models by coupling RC and SPM retrieving processes, especially for sensors without precise RC coefficients.

Based on the GF1 and GF4 radiation calibration analysis

In order to test the in-orbit radiation characteristics of GF-1 and GF-4, and obtain accurate radiometric calibration coefficients, this paper proposes a MODIS and LandSat 8 cross-calibration method based on Dunhuang radiation correction field and a method for comparing the radiance error of GF-1 and GF-4 satellite images based on uniform regions. First, this article introduces the cross-calibration principle and the overview of the uniform target sample area, and compares the band matching and spectral response of the four remote sensors. Then, cross-calibration based on the scenes of the same area at the same time of GF-1, GF-4, MODIS, and LandSat 8 on 28 July 2017. The results show that the calibration coefficient error obtained by this method is within 6%. The error of the calibration coefficient obtained by cross-calibration with LandSat 8 satellite is smaller, which satisfies the basic remote sensing quantitative demand. The GF-1 satellite has high calibration accuracy and is suitable for cross-calibration research of China's independent satellite remote sensors. It is of great significance for the establishment of China's in-orbit calibration system.

Landsats 1–5 Multispectral Scanner System Sensors Radiometric Calibration Update

First launched in 1972, the Landsat satellite sensors have provided the longest continuous record of high-quality images of the earth’s surface that are used in both civilian and military applications. The Landsat Multispectral Scanner System (MSS) sensor was onboard Landsat-1 through Landsat-5. In fact, the MSS sensors provide the only systematic global multispectral space-based imagery of the earth’s surface from 1972 to 1982. This paper focuses on the radiometric calibration update of the Landsats 1–5 MSS sensors. The radiometric calibration was performed in both radiance- and reflectance-based scales through the cross-calibration approach. Simultaneous or near-simultaneous image collections were available for MSS sensor pairs and used for the cross-calibration. The estimated uncertainties for this calibration update exhibit progressively decreasing calibration accuracy, ranging from 5.1% for MSS-5 to 8.8% for MSS-1 in the green spectral band, for example. Finally, the new radiometric calibration coefficients were validated through the use of pseudo-invariant calibration sites (PICS). The temporal Top of the Atmosphere (TOA) radiance and TOA reflectance over the Sonoran Desert were plotted with the purpose of verifying the lifetime radiometric stability of MSS sensors. With the previous calibration, the agreement between the measurements of TOA reflectance over the Sonoran Desert was around 7.5% for all spectral bands. With the calibration update implemented in this study, the agreement between MSS sensors is 3.6%, 2.9%, 3.5%, and 5.9% for the green, red, near-infrared response (NIR-1), and NIR-2 spectral bands, respectively. This study ties all the Landsat legacy instruments from Landsat-1 MSS through Landsat-8 OLI to a consistent radiometric scale.

FengYun-3 B Satellite Medium Resolution Spectral Imager Visible On-Board Calibrator Radiometric Output Degradation Analysis

The output of the FengYun-3 B (FY-3B) satellite’s medium resolution spectral imager (MERSI) visible on-board calibrator (OBC) degrades with time, causing concerns regarding its reliability in radiometric calibration. Special efforts have been made to extract the variation in information of the interior lamps. The specifications include: 1) digital count retrieval from the OBC files and an exponential plus linear fit applied to determine the relative change in the MERSI response; 2) anchoring to cross calibration with MODIS to acquire the absolute radiometric calibration coefficients; 3) a time series calibration tracking method based on the pseudoinvariant target site applied to monitor the degradation of the FY-3B MERSI instrument; and 4) “net” interior lamp radiometric output (ILRO) obtained by subtracting long-term pseudoinvariant tracking results from the scaled visible on-board calibrator-based model gain coefficients. The results show that the decay rates of the ILRO are wavelength dependent and the shortwave outputs are found to experience a large degradation, particularly at 470, 550, 412, 443, 490, 520, and 565 nm. The largest annual degradation rate is greater than 15% in the first year. The implementation of the current procedure combined with a detailed analysis will provide a basis for further determining lamp changes, leading to improved absolute calibration accuracy of MERSI products.