Side-Slither Data-Based Vignetting Correction of High-Resolution Spaceborne Camera with Optical Focal Plane Assembly

Area of Science:

• Remote Sensing
• Optical Engineering
• Image Processing

Background:

• High-resolution satellite systems utilize optical focal plane assemblies for linear push-broom imaging.
• Vignetting in the overlap areas of these systems degrades image quality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and validate a side-slither data-based vignetting correction method for high-resolution spaceborne cameras.
• To address image quality issues caused by vignetting in optical focal plane assemblies.

Main Methods:

• Standardization of raw side-slither data to ensure consistent row features.
• Utilizing gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) for spatial correlation to identify uniform regions and extract sample points.
• Applying a power-law model fitted with the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm to correct for linear and non-linear responses.

Main Results:

• The proposed method achieved less than 1% change in mean value for corrected side-slither images.
• Root-mean-square deviation values were improved to better than 0.1%.
• Average streaking metrics were superior to 0.02, indicating enhanced image quality.

Conclusions:

• The side-slither data-based vignetting correction method effectively mitigates image quality degradation.
• The proposed approach demonstrates superior performance in vignetting correction compared to traditional methods like polynomial fitting.