Investigation of rigorous sensor models and adjustment parameters for modeling satellite orbits

The current practice in photogrammetry adopts scene- based approach for establishing sensor models of satellite images. One prepares ground control points (GCPs) for a scene of interest, applies bundle adjustments and estimates orientation parameters for the scene. In this paper, we investigate rigorous sensor models for modeling satellite orbits, instead of individual scenes, through bundle adjustment process. Using GCPs from one scene we aim to estimate orientation parameters that can be applied to all images acquired from the same orbit. We selected two types of well-known rigorous sensor models: collinearity- based type and orbit-based type. For each type, we defined seven adjustment parameter sets and tested the performance of orbit modeling for each the sensor model type and adjustment parameter set. We used two strips with a length of 420 km (seven SPOT-3 scenes), which constituted a stereo pair. With each strip, we tested the feasibility of estimating orientation parameters for the whole image strip using GCPs from single scene. We also tested the feasibility of absolute orientation from orbit modeling, i.e. the ability of acquiring 3D information from a stereo strip using GCPs from single scene. Results showed that although there was little difference between the two models for individual scene modeling, for orbit modeling the orbit-based model showed better results. The orbit-based model that used attitude biases as adjustment parameters produced promising performances for modeling the orbital segments and for absolute orientation.