Vicarious Radiometric Calibration of the Ground-based Hyperspectral Camera Image

Although hyperspectral sensing data have shown great potential to derive various surface information that is not usually available from conventional multispectral image, the acquisition of proper hyperspectral image data are often limited. To use ground-based hyperspectral camera image for remote sensing studies, radiometric calibration should be prerequisite. The objective of this study is to develop radiometric calibration procedure to convert image digital number (DN) value to surface reflectance for the 120 bands ground-based hyperspectral camera. Hyperspectral image and spectral measurements were simultaneously obtained from the experimental target that includes 22 different surface materials of diverse spectral characteristics at wavelength range between 400 to 900 nm. Calibration coefficients to convert image DN value to at-sensor radiance were initially derived from the regression equations between the sample image and spectral measurements using ASD spectroradiometer. Assuming that there is no atmospheric effects when the image acquisition and spectral measurements were made at very close distance in ground, we were also able to derive calibration coefficients that directly transform DN value to surface reflectance. However, these coefficients for deriving reflectance values should not be applied when the camera is used for aerial image that contains significant effect from atmosphere and further atmospheric correction procedure is required in such case.