• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.305-319
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• 2021

The overseas calibration sites such as Mongolia used for Korea Multi-purpose Satellite (KOMPSAT-5 or K5), have a disadvantage in that maintenance and repair costs are high and immediate response is difficult when an unexpected problem occurs. Accordingly, the necessity of establishing a domestic SAR calibration site was suggested, but the progress of related research is insignificant. In this paper, we investigated what conditions should be satisfied in terms of backscattering characteristics to construct a site for SAR satellite image quality evaluation and calibration. First of all, it was selected first by applying general indicators such as accessibility and availability among places recommended as satellite image calibration candidate sitesin Korea. Next, three places, site A (Goheung-gun, Jeollanam-do), site B (Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do), and site C (Daedeok Research Complex, Daejeon), were selected as the final candidates because they are relatively wide and easy to install AT or CR. Site A, located in Goheung-gun, Jeollanam-do, was best considered in terms of slope measurements, minimum site area to obtain ISLR, uniformity of DN values and backscatter coefficients, interference by strong reflectors, and backscatter clutter level.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.659-666
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• 2009

CALVAL (Calibration & Validation) shall consider payloads characteristics because satellites have one and/or several payloads in order to perform their various missions. SAR satellite, one of various satellite, shall need to use special ground targets, which can reflect the radar signal to the satellite, because it can see objects with reflected radar signal. Therefore, the special ground targets, which are called generally reflector(corner reflector is the one of them) shall be installed and constructed on the ground path. The satellite must access the targets on that path. To accomplish successful calibration, the CALVAL site including corner reflectors will be surveyed and analyzed using various environment characteristics. In this paper, CALVAL site including point targets(corner reflector) for absolute radiometric calibration except one including distributed targets for relative radiometric calibration has been deeply considered.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.311-326
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• 2022

The Compact Advanced Satellite 500-4 (CAS500-4) is under development to efficiently manage and monitor forests in Korea and is scheduled to launch in 2025. The National Institute of Forest Science is developing 36 types of forestry applications to utilize the CAS500-4 efficiently. The products derived using the remote sensing method require validation with ground reference data, and the quality monitoring results for the products must be continuously reported. Due to it being the first time developing the national forestry satellite, there is no official calibration and validation site for forestry products in Korea. Accordingly, the author designed a calibration and validation site for the forestry products following international standards. In addition, to install calibration and validation sites nationwide, the authors selected appropriate sensors and evaluated the applicability of the sensors. As a result, the difference between the ground observation data and the Sentinel-2 image was observed to be within ±5%, confirming that the sensor could be used for nationwide expansion.

• Current Industrial and Technological Trends in Aerospace
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.98-104
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• 2010

The demand for Satellite Images is continuously increasing owing to the various applications of optical satellite images. However, the acquisition of optical images has a limitation due to problems of weather and day & night. because an optical satellite makes images with reflections of sunlight. Therefore, SAR Satellite, which uses electromagnetic waves to make an image, gives increased demand to various applications. It also makes increased interest. In this paper, a calibration and validation system, which is an essential element for high quality Radar images, is studied.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.6_1
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• pp.1389-1399
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• 2023

KOMPSAT-3/3A (K3/K3A) absolute radiometric calibration study was conducted based on a Field Line of sight Automated Radiance Exposure (FLARE) system. FLARE is a system, which has been developed by Labsphere, Inc. adopted a SPecular Array Radiometric Calibration (SPARC) concept. The FLARE utilizes a specular mirror target resulting in a simplified radiometric calibration method by minimizing other sources of diffusive radiative energies. Several targeted measurements of K3/3A satellites over a FLARE site were acquired during a field campaign period (July 5-15, 2021). Due to bad weather situations, only two observations of K3 were identified as effective samples and they were employed for the study. Absolute radiometric calibration coefficients were computed using combined information from the FLARE and K3 satellite measurements. Comparison between the two FLARE measurements (taken on 7/7 and 7/13) showed very consistent results (less than 1% difference between them except the NIR channel). When additional data sets of K3/K3A taken on Aug 2021 were also analyzed and compared with gain coefficients from the metadata which are used by current K3/K3A, It showed a large discrepancy. It is assumed that more studies are needed to verify usefulness of the FLARE system for the K3/3A absolute radiometric calibration.

• Current Industrial and Technological Trends in Aerospace
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.92-99
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• 2006

지구관측위성을 통해 획득되는 다양한 원격탐사 자료는 정부 및 공공기관 등 공공의 업무에 매우 유용한 각종 주제정보를 제공하며, 이는 상업적 지구관측 자료의 활용 및 판매 증대 등으로 나타나고 있다. 그러나 이와 같은 위성원격탐사 자료를 이용하여 생성되는 다양한 주제정보는 그 신뢰성에 대한 명확한 검증작업을 거친 후에야 활용이 가능하다. 이를 위하여 우주개발 선진국의 경우 위성발사 초기단계에서부터 주기적으로 영상자료에 대한 검․보정 활동을 체계적으로 수행함과 동시에 그 활용 결과물을 검증하고 실제 적용하기 위한 다양한 지상 검증 사이트를 구축하여 운영하고 있다. 본 논문에서는 해외 위성영상 활용 검증 사이트의 구축 현황과 운영 실태 등에 대하여 서술하고자 한다.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.37 no.5_2
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• pp.1245-1257
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• 2021

GOCI-II, succeeding the mission of GOCI, was launched in February 2020 and has been in regular operation since October 2020. Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) processes and produces in real time Level-1B and 26 Level-2 outputs, which then are provided by Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic Agency (KHOA). We introduced current status of regular GOCI-II operation and showed future improvement. Basic GOCI-II products including chlorophyll-a, total suspended materials, and colored dissolved organic matter concentration, are induced by OC4 and YOC algorithms, which were described in detail. For the full disk (FD), imaging schedule was established considering solar zenith angle and sun glint during the in-orbital test, but improved by further considering satellite zenith angle. The number of slots satisfying the condition 'Best Ocean' significantly increased from 15 to 78. GOCI-II calibration requirements were presented based on that by European Space Agency (ESA) and candidate fixed locations for calibrating local observation area were. The quality management of FD uses research ships and overseas bases of KIOST, but it is necessary to establish an international calibration/validation network. These results are expected to enhance the understanding of users for output processing and help establish detailed plans for future quality management tasks.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.723-730
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• 2012

The radar cross section(RCS) of a trihedral corner reflector(TCR) should be accurately computed when it is used as an external calibration target for a satellite synthetic aperture radar(SAR) calibration campaign. This paper presents the RCS analysis on a trihedral corner reflector which is installed on a calibration site, using the wave reflection from the rough surface and the wave diffraction from the TCR edges. The results in this paper show quantitatively the effect of the front surface on the RCS of a TCR. The difference of the RCS between a TCR in air and a TCR on a ground surface is computed by including the interaction term which consists of the edge diffraction from the TCR edges and the surface reflection from the front rough surface. The reflection coefficient of a randomly rough surface is a function of the surface roughness and dielectric constant of the surface. The RCS of $10{\lambda}$ size TCR on a ground is 0.46 dB higher than TCR in air at 9.65 GHz, and this can reach at maximum 1.55 dB depending on a surface condition and TCR size. The effect of the front surface on the RCS of a TCR increases, as the surface roughness decreases, the soil moisture increases, and the size of TCR in wavelength decreases.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.57-68
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• 2017

Continuous monitoring of spatial and temporal changes in key marine environmental parameters such as SST (sea surface temperature) near IORS (Ieodo Ocean Research Station) is demanded to investigate the ocean ecosystem, climate change, and sea-air interaction processes. In this study, we aimed to develop the system for continuously measuring SST using a TIR (thermal infrared) sensor mounted at the IORS. New SST algorithm is developed to provide SST of better quality that includes automatic atmospheric correction and emissivity calculation for different oceanic conditions. Then, the TIR-based SST products were validated against in-situ water temperature measurements during May 17-26, 2015 and July 15-18, 2015 at the IORS, yielding the accuracy of 0.72-0.85 R-square, and $0.37-0.90^{\circ}C$ RMSE. This TIR-based SST observing system can be installed easily at similar Ocean Research Stations such as Sinan Gageocho and Ongjin Socheongcho, which provide a vision to be utilized as calibration site for SST remotely sensed from satellites to be launched in future.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.6_3
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• pp.1457-1468
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• 2018

The sigma naught (${\sigma}^0$) equation is essential to calculate geo-physical properties from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images for the applications such as ground target identification,surface classification, sea wind speed calculation, and soil moisture estimation. In this paper, we are suggesting new Kompsat-5 (K5) Radar Cross Section (RCS) and ${\sigma}^0$ equations reflecting the final SAR processor update and absolute radiometric calibration in order to increase the application of K5 SAR images. Firstly, we analyzed the accuracy of the K5 RCS equation by using trihedral corner reflectors installed in the Kompsat calibration site in Mongolia. The average difference between the calculated values using RCS equation and the measured values with K5 SAR processor was about $0.2dBm^2$ for Spotlight and Stripmap imaging modes. In addition, the verification of the K5 ${\sigma}^0$ equation was carried out using the TerraSAR-X (TSX) and Sentinel-1A (S-1A) SAR images over Amazon rainforest, where the backscattering characteristics are not significantly affected by the seasonal change. The calculated ${\sigma}^0$ difference between K5 and TSX/S-1A was less than 0.6 dB. Considering the K5 absolute radiometric accuracy requirement, which is 2.0 dB ($1{\sigma}$), the average difference of $0.2dBm^2$ for RCS equation and the maximum difference of 0.6 dB for ${\sigma}^0$ equation show that the accuracies of the suggested equations are relatively high. In the future, the validity of the suggested RCS and ${\sigma}^0$ equations is expected to be verified through the application such as sea wind speed calculation, where quantitative analysis is possible.