The Operational Land Imager (OLI) aboard the LDCM satellite was rigorously radiometrically characterized prior to launch to assure absolute calibration that is NIST traceable. On orbit additional dedicated calibration collects are being made to continue monitoring and characterizing the OLI radiometric performance. In this paper we report on the OLI on-orbit uniformity performance, which is a natural extension of the absolute radiometric accuracy. Such performance characteristic in remote sensing instruments is assuring that the radiometric accuracy in low contrast images is preserved while avoiding non-uniformity artifacts in the produced radiometric product. The LDCM project science team working with the instrument teams developed a performance metric to monitor the uniformity performance. We will describe the uniformity performance metric and discuss associated error sources in obtaining the radiometric calibration parameters that impact the uniformity correction. We will compare the uniformity performance between solar diffuser observation and earth data.

Date Published: 2 October 2014
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 9218, Earth Observing Systems XIX, 921818 (2 October 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2063164

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9218:
Earth Observing Systems XIX
James J. Butler; Xiaoxiong (Jack) Xiong; Xingfa Gu, Editor(s)