High accurate geometric correction for NOAA AVHRR data considering the variation of elevation effect and radial basic function transformation

In recent years, NOAA images have been provided very useful information about ecosystems, climate, weather and water from all over the world. In order to use NOAA images, they need to be transformed from image coordinate system into map coordinate system. This paper proposes a method that corrects the errors caused by this transformation. First, elevation values are read from GTOPO30 database and they are verified to divide data into flat and rough blocks. The elevation errors of all blocks are then calculated based on the elevation values. After correcting elevation errors, residual errors are specified by GCP template matching. On the flat blocks, residual errors are corrected by affine transformation; on the rough blocks, residual errors are corrected by applying Radial Basic Function Transformation to the residual errors of the blocks that match GCP templates. With this correction method, residual errors are corrected precisely and the errors of interpolation process are reduced. This method was applied to correct the errors for NOAA images receiving in Tokyo, Bangkok and Ulaanbaatar. The results proved that this is a high accurate geometric correction method.