Accuracy is a key factor in high-resolution remote sensing and photogrammetry. The factors that affect accuracy are imaging system errors and data processing errors. Due to the complexity of aerial camera errors, this paper focuses on the design of digital aerial camera systems and the means to reduce system error and data processing inefficiencies. There are many kinds of digital aerial camera systems at present;however, these systems lack a unified physical model, which ultimately leads to more complicated designs and multi-camera modes. Such a system is complex and costly, as it is easily affected by factors such as vibration and temperature. Thus, the installed accuracy can only reach the millimeter level. Here, we describe a unified physical structure for a digital aerial camera that imitates an out-of-field multi-charge-coupled device (CCD), an in-field multi-CCD, and once-imaging and twice-imaging digital camera systems. This model is referred to as the variable baseline-height ratio spatiotemporal model. The variable ratio allows the opto-mechanical spatial parameters to be linked with height accuracy, thus providing a connection to the surface elevation. The twice-imaging digital camera prototype system and the wideband limb imaging spectrometer provide a transformation prototype from the current multi-rigid once-imaging aerial camera to a single rigid structure. Thus, our research lays a theoretical foundation and prototype references for the construction and industrialization of digital aerial systems.
Lei YANZhengkang ZUOYingcheng LIXiuxiao YUANYan SONGQingsheng XUEShihu ZHAO
The radiometric calibration of remote sensors is a basis and prerequisite of information quantification in remote sensing. This paper proposes a method for outdoor relative radiometric calibration using gray scale targets. In this method, the idea of two substitutions is adopted. Sunlight is used to replace the integrating sphere light source, and gray scale targets are used to re-place the diffuser. In this way, images at different radiance levels obtained outdoors can calculate the relative radiometric cali-bration coefficients using the least square method. The characteristics of this method are as follows. Firstly, compared with la-boratory calibration, it greatly reduces the complexity of the calibration method and the test cost. Secondly, compared with the existing outdoor relative radiometric calibration of a single radiance level, it uses test images of different radiance levels to re-duce errors. Thirdly, it is easy to operate with fewer environmental requirements, has obvious advantages in the rapid calibra-tion of airborne remote sensors before or after flight and is practical in engineering. This paper theoretically and experimental-ly proves the feasibility of this method. Calibration experiments were conducted on the wide-view multispectral imager (WVMI) using this method, and the precision of this method was evaluated by analyzing the corrected images of large uniform targets on ground. The experiment results have demonstrated that the new method is effective and its precision meets the re-quirement of the absolute radiometric calibration.
