Cross-Calibration of GF-1 PMS Sensor With Landsat 8 OLI and Terra MODIS

The panchromatic and multispectral (PMS) sensor is a high spatial resolution sensor aboard the GF-1 satellite launched on April 26, 2013. This paper focuses on the cross-calibration of the PMS sensor using Terra/Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Landsat 8/Operational Land Imager (OLI). Two matched-image adjustment factors (MIAFs) are used in the cross-calibration which are the radiance MIAF and reflectance MIAF. Two test sites are chosen as the regions of interest. One is the Dunhuang test site, which has been used for the vicarious calibration of Chinese satellites since later 1990s. The other is the Golmud test site, which is a new site with no ground measured data available. The results show that both the Dunhuang and Golmud test sites can be used for cross-calibration. This paper reveals that the cross-calibration of the PMS sensor using OLI is better than using MODIS, as the calibration coefficient difference between the two test sites with OLI is smaller than that with MODIS. The uncertainty analysis results show that the uncertainty of cross-calibration using OLI is 5%-7% when the ground data are not available.