VEGETATION L-band image processing system. Geometric performances and spatio-temporal stability

Abstract

Among the Earth Observation (EO) instruments used in environmental and agricultural applications, the SPOT4-VEGETATION (SPOT4-VGT) instrument allows daily monitoring of terrestrial vegetation cover through remote sensing, at regional and global levels. The characterization of the geometric and radiometric performances of remote sensing data and their temporal stability play an important role in the analysis of EO images and are essential in environmental and agricultural monitoring applications. The validation and characterization of the SPOT4-VGT image geometric performances and temporal stability are investigated in this letter. Three time series of data acquired during 1999, 2000 and 2001 were used for this purpose. These images were downlinked by several VGT L-band receiving stations and processed by the SPACE-VGT software. From analyses made, it can be concluded that the geometric characteristics of the VGT L-band images agree with the VGT International User Committee requirements: the multispectral registration has a root mean square (RMS) error in the range of 0.25±0.17 pixels for B2, B3 and MIR bands, and 0.48±0.21 pixels for B0 band; the multi-temporal registration has a RMS error in the range of 0.38±0.23 pixels; and the absolute geo-location has a RMS error in the range of ±660 m.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to express his sincere thanks to Patrice Henry, Xavier Passot and Jean-François Reulet from the French Space Agency (CNES) for the interesting discussions about the VEGETATION instrument, and SCOT enterprise and particularly Guy Pierre, for providing VEGETATION L-band raw data and PCI-Radiometric files for this study. The comments of the three anonymous reviewers are greatly appreciated.