The Study of In-Orbit Calibration Accuracy of NOAA Satellite Infrared Sounder and Its Effect on Temperature Profile Retrievals

The calibration accuracy of High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder Mod. 2 (HIRS / 2) on NOAA-10 satellite is analyzed in this paper. The non-linear effect in the linear calibration curve induces a deviation of 1.5 degrees (k) of brightness temperature in the tenth channel (8.3 um, water vapor absorption) of the HIRS/2 and the non-linear effect affects the other channels to a different extent. Based on analyzing non- linearity in two-point calibration curve, a tri-point calibration equation is given. A numerical test of effects of the linear and non-linear calibration models on the accuracy of atmospheric temperature retrievals is carried out.

Scintrex CG5 used for superconducting gravimeter calibration

The scale factor accuracy of superconducting gravimeters （SG） can be largely improved by a high repetition rate of calibration experiments. At stations where the availability of absolute gravimeters is limited, carefully calibrated spring gravimeters can be used for providing the reference signal assuming the irregular drift is properly adjusted. The temporal stability of the SG scale factor is assessable by comparing the temporal variations of M2 tidal parameters observed at neighboring SG sites or from synthetic tide models. Combining these methods reduces the SG scale factor error to a few 0.1%0. The paper addresses the particular procedure required for evaluating the calibration experiments based on spring gravimeters and presents results obtained at Conrad observatory （Austria）. Comparing the M2 amplitude factor modulation helped to reveal a SG scale factor offset of about 0.2%0 due to re-installation.

CALIBRATION OF A 6-DOF SPACE ROBOT USING GENETIC ALGORITHM

The kinematic error model of a 6-DOF space robot is deduced, and the cost function of kinematic parameter identification is built. With the aid of the genetic algorithm （GA） that has the powerful global adaptive probabilistic search ability, 24 parameters of the robot are identified through simulation, which makes the pose （position and orientation） accuracy of the robot a great improvement. In the process of the calibration, stochastic measurement noises are considered. Lastly, generalization of the identified kinematic parameters in the whole workspace of the robot is discussed. The simulation results show that calibrating the robot with GA is very stable and not sensitive to measurement noise. Moreover, even if the robot＇s kinematic parameters are relative, GA still has strong search ability to find the optimum solution.

Research on sea surface temperature retrieval by the one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometer, 1D-SAMR

Due to the low spatial resolution of sea surface temperature(T_S)retrieval by real aperture microwave radiometers,in this study,an iterative retrieval method that minimizes the differences between brightness temperature(T_B)measured and modeled was used to retrieve sea surface temperature with a one-dimensional synthetic aperture microwave radiometer,temporarily named 1 D-SAMR.Regarding the configuration of the radiometer,an angular resolution of 0.43°was reached by theoretical calculation.Experiments on sea surface temperature retrieval were carried out with ideal parameters;the results show that the main factors affecting the retrieval accuracy of sea surface temperature are the accuracy of radiometer calibration and the precision of auxiliary geophysical parameters.In the case of no auxiliary parameter errors,the greatest error in retrieved sea surface temperature is obtained at low T_S scene(i.e.,0.7106 K for the incidence angle of 35°under the radiometer calibration accuracy of0.5 K).While errors on auxiliary parameters are assumed to follow a Gaussian distribution,the greatest error on retrieved sea surface temperature was 1.3305 K at an incidence angle of 65°in poorly known sea surface wind speed(W)(the error on W of 1.0 m/s)over high W scene,for the radiometer calibration accuracy of 0.5 K.

Calibration method to improve the accuracy of THz imaging and spectroscopy in reflection geometry

We introduce a novel method to accurately extract the optical parameters in terahertz reflection imaging. Our method builds on standard self-referencing methods using the reflected signal from the bottom of the imaging window material to further compensate for time-dependent system fluctuations and position-dependent variation in the window thickness. Our proposed method not only improves the accuracy, but also simplifies the imaging procedure and reduces measurement times.

Joint calibration algorithm for gain-phase and mutual coupling errors in uniform linear array

The effect of gain-phase perturbations and mutual coupling significantly degrades the performance of digital array radar (DAR). This paper investigates array calibration problems in the scenario where the true locations of auxiliary sources deviate from nominal values but the angle intervals are known. A practical algorithm is proposed to jointly calibrate gain-phase errors and mutual coupling errors. Firstly, a simplified model of the distortion matrix is developed based on its special structure in uniform linear array (ULA). Then the model is employed to derive the precise locations of the auxiliary sources by one-dimension search. Finally, the least-squares estimation of the distortion matrix is obtained. The algorithm has the potential of achieving considerable improvement in calibration accuracy due to the reduction of unknown parameters. In addition, the algorithm is feasible for practical applications, since it requires only one auxiliary source with the help of rotation platforms. Simulation results demonstrate the validity, robustness and high performance of the proposed algorithm. Experiments were carried out using an S-band DAR test-bed. The results of measured data show that the proposed algorithm is practical and effective in application. (C) 2016 Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of Chinese Society of Aeronautics and Astronautics.