Radiometric Characteristics of KOMPSAT EOC Data Assessed by Simulating the Sensor Received Radiance

Although EOC data have been frequently used in several applications since the launch of the KOMPSAT-1 satellite in 1999, its radiometric characteristics are not clear due to the inherent limitations of the on-board calibration system. The radiometric characteristics of remotely sensed imagery can be measured by the sensitivity of radiant flux coming from various surface features on the earth. The objective of this study is to analyze the radiometric characteristics of EOC data by simulating the sensor- received radiance. Initially, spectral reflectance values of reference targets were measured on the ground by using a portable spectre-radiometer at the EOC spectrum. A radiative transfer model, LOWTRAN, then simulated the sensor-received radiance values of the same reference target. By correlating the digital number (DN) extracted from the EOC image to the corresponding radiance values simulated from LOWTRAN, we could find the radiometric calibration coefficients for EOC image. The radiometric gain coefficients of EOC are very similar to those of other panchromatic optical sensors.