On-orbit geometric calibration and geometric quality assessment for the high-resolution geostationary optical satellite GaoFen4

Abstract The Chinese GaoFen4 (GF4) remote sensing satellite, launched at the end of December 2015, is China’s first civilian high-resolution geostationary optical satellite and has the world’s highest resolution from geostationary orbit. High accuracy geometric calibration is the key factor in the geometrical quality of satellite imagery. This paper proposes an on-orbit geometric calibration approach for the high-resolution geostationary optical satellite GF4 in which a stepwise calibration is performed, external parameters are estimated, and internal parameters are then estimated in a generalized camera frame determined by external parameters. First, the correlation of the imaging error sources and the rigorous imaging model of GF4 are introduced. Second, the geometric calibration model based on the two-dimensional detector directional angle and the parameters estimation method for the planar array camera are presented. LandSat 8 digital orthophoto maps (DOM) and GDEM2 digital elevation models (DEM) are used to validate the efficiency of the proposed method and to make a geometric quality assessment of GF4. The results indicate that changing imaging time and imaging area will dramatically affect the absolute positioning accuracy because of the change of the camera’s installation angles caused by thermal environment changes around the satellite in a high orbit. After calibration, the internal distortion is well-compensated, and the positioning accuracy with relatively few ground control points (GCPs) is demonstrated to be better than 1.0 pixels for both the panchromatic and near-infrared sensor and the intermediate infrared sensor.