AN AUTOMATED-METHOD FOR NAVIGATION ASSESSMENT FOR EARTH SURVEY SENSORS USING ISLAND TARGETS

An automated method has been developed for performing navigation asses sment on satellite-based Earth sensor data. The method utilizes island s as targets which can be readily located in the sensor data and ident ified with reference locations. The essential elements are an algorith m for classifying the sensor data according to source, a reference cat alogue of island locations, and a robust pattern-matching algorithm fo r island identification. The algorithms were developed and tested for the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS), an ocean colour s ensor. This method will allow navigation error statistics to be automa tically generated for large numbers of points, supporting analysis ove r large spatial and temporal ranges.