Atmosphere Refraction Effects in Object Locating for Optical Satellite Remote Sensing Images

The collinear rigorous geometric model contains the atmosphere refraction geometric error in off-nadir observation. In order to estimate and correct the atmosphere refraction geometric error, the ISO international standard atmospheric model and Owens atmosphere refractive index algorithm are applied to calculate the index of atmosphere refraction in different latitude and altitude. The paper uses the weighted mean algorithm to reduce the eight layers ISO standard atmospheric model into a simple troposphere and stratosphere two layers spherical atmosphere. And the LOS vector track geometric algorithm is used to estimate the atmosphere refraction geometric error in different observation off-nadir angle. The results show that the atmosphere refraction will introduce about 2.5 m or 9 m geometric displacement in 30 or 45 degree off-nadir angle individual. Therefore, during geo-location processing of agile platform and extra wide high spatial resolution imagery, there is need to take into account the influence of atmosphere refraction and correct the atmosphere refraction geometric error to enhance the geo-location precision without GCPs