A Study on Optimal Strategy in Relative Radiometric Calibration for Optical Sensors

Based on the analysis of three main factors involved in the relative radiometric calibration for optical sensors, namely: the number of radiance level; the number of measurements at each level; and the radiance level grouping method, an optimal strategy is presented in this paper for relative radiometric calibration. First, the maximization to the possible extent of either the number of the radiance level or the number of measurements at each level can improve the precision of the calibration results, where the recommended number of measurements is no less than 20. Second, when the number of the radiance level is divisible by four, dividing all the levels evenly into four groups by intensity gradient order and conducting averages for each group could achieve calibration results with the highest precision, which is higher than the result of no grouping or any other grouping method with the mean square error being 2 2 M n / I T (where M n is the mean square error of noise in the calibration data, I is the number of the radiance level, and T is the number of measurements for each level. In this case, the first two factors had an equivalent effect and showed their strongest effect on the precision. Third, when the calibration data were not evenly divided, the number of measurements demonstrated a stronger effect than the number of the radiance level. These cognitions are helping to achieve more precise relative radiometric calibration of optical sensors.