A method for accurate geometric correction of NOAA AVHRR HRPT data

A method for the geometric correction of NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) high-resolution picture transmission (HRPT) data is presented. After precise determination of nominal attitude angles for each time instant, geometric correction is done for ground control points (GCPs), and residual errors are interpreted as attitude angle variation effects and in this way corrected. All attitude angle deviations (in pitch, roll, and yaw) are simultaneously corrected by applying to two reference vectors (the vector normal to the scanning plane and the vector that defines the instantaneous viewing direction of the first pixel of each line) a three-axis rotation. A separate program performs the geometric correction, applying the orbital model to each point of the desired output geographical area. An application of this method is presented, in which AVHRR data are registered over a 1:25000 topographic map with subpixel accuracy, allowing the use of AVHRR data in a nearly local scale in combination with other high-resolution data, such as Landsat TM or SPOT