Development and Utilization of a Mirror Array Target for the Calibration and Harmonization of Micro-Satellite Imagery

Abstract

The utilization of multi-sensor and constellation satellite data with appropriate geometric and radiometric calibration and validation is required for effective satellite data applications for various monitoring tasks. In this paper, we present the research and development of optical calibration sites using both natural surface and ground point-source-mirror reflectors constructed at The Center for Research and Application of Satellite Remote Sensing of Yamaguchi University (YUCARS), Japan. The YUCARS calibration sites experimented with GRUS-1A (Axelspace Corporation, Tokyo, Japan) and PlanetScope (Planet Lab, San Francisco, CA, USA) images for the verification of radiometric and geometric performance following the harmonized reflectance product. The top of atmosphere (TOA) radiance and reflectance of optical micro-satellite imageries were simulated by MODTRAN6 based on the in-situ data of the ground point-source-mirror reflector, ground surface and atmospheric measurements. The YUCARS mirror arrays were used to verify geometric accuracy and better band co-registration. The TOA reflectance derived from the ground measurements and acquired by satellite instruments were correlated to derive harmonization coefficients. The results show an improvement in image accuracy and harmonization of the different sensor data for the multi-temporal application. The preliminary results show that the mirror-arrays method can efficiently solve the limits of the external environment, time, and space. Furthermore, it can be used for improving radiometric performance and image quality using deblurring from a point spread function created from YUCARS mirror arrays.