Efficient assessment method of on-board modulation transfer function of optical remote sensing sensors

Modulation transfer function (MTF) can be used to evaluate the imaging performance of on-board optical remote sensing sensors, as well as recover and restore images to improve imaging quality. Laboratory measurement approaches for MTF have achieved high precision. However, they are not yet suitable for on-board measurement. In this paper, a new five-step approach to calculate MTF of space optical remote sensing sensors is proposed. First, a pixel motion model is used to extract the conditional sub-frame images. Second, a mathematical morphology algorithm and a correlation-homomorphic filter algorithm are used to eliminate noise and enhance sub-frame image. Third, an image partial differentiation determines the accurate position of edge points. Fourth, a model optical function is used to build a high-resolution edge spread function. Finally, MTF is calculated by derivation and Fourier transform. The experiment shows that the assessment method of MTF is superior to others.