MODELING SATELLITE IMAGE STRIPS WITH COLLINEARITY-BASED AND ORBIT-BASED SENSOR MODELS

Usually to achieve precise geolocation of satellite images, we need to get GCPs (Ground control points) from individual scenes. This requirement greatly increases the cost and processing time for satellite mapping. In this article, we focus on finding appropriate sensor models for entire image strips composing of several adjacent scenes. We tested the feasibility of modelling whole satellite image strips by establishing sensor models of one scene with GCPs and by applying the models to neighboring scenes without GCPs. For this, we developed two types of sensor models: collinearity-based type and orbit-based type and tested them using different sets of unknowns. Results indicated that although the performance of two types was very similar, for modelling individual scenes, it was not for modelling the whole strips. Moreover, the performance of sensor models was remarkably sensitive to different sets of unknowns. It was found that the orbit-based model using attitude biases as unknowns can be used to model SPOT image strips of 420 Km in length.