Relative radiometric characterization and performance of the QuickBird high-resolution commercial imaging satellite

The QuickBird commercial imaging satellite is a pushbroom system with four multispectral bands covering the visible through near-infrared region of the spectrum and a panchromatic band. The focal plane contains 6972 detectors in each MS band and 27888 detectors in the pan band that must be calibrated. A relative radiometric correction is performed on all image data to account for detector-to-detector non-uniformities and to reduce banding and streaking that would otherwise be seen in the imagery. The goal of the relative radiometric correction, other than to minimize image artifacts, is to scale all image pixel brightness digital numbers (DNs) to top-of-atmosphere spectral radiances so that one set of absolute calibration factors can be applied to all pixels in a given band. A series of uniform imagery collected between February and June of 2004 was radiometrically corrected and analyzed for banding and streaking performance. Banding in QuickBird imagery is less than four DNs in normal desert, ocean, and forest scenes. Desert scenes alone have a percent banding of less than 0.5% in the MS bands and less than 0.7% in the pan band. Banding is less than 2% for typical scenes. Streaking is less than 0.6% for all MS and pan detectors.