Informatics Publishing Limited

A. S. Arya ¹, S. S. Sarkar ¹, A. R. Srinivas ¹, S. Manthira Moorthi ¹, Vishnukumar D. Patel ¹, Rimjhim B. Singh ¹, R. P. Rajasekhar ¹, Sampa Roy ¹, Indranil Misra ¹, Sukamal Kr. Paul ¹, Dhrupesh Shah ², Kamlesh Patel ¹, Rajdeep K. Gambhir ¹, U. S. H. Rao ¹, Amul Patel ¹, Jalshri Desai ¹, Rahul Dev ¹, Ajay K. Prashar ¹, Hiren Rambhia ¹, Ranjan Parnami ¹, Harish Seth ¹, K. R. Murali ¹, Rishi Kaushik ¹, Deepak Patidar ¹, Nilesh Soni ¹, Prakash Chauhan ¹, D. R. M. Samudraiah ¹, A. S. Kiran Kumar ¹

Affiliations
1 Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Ahmedabad 380 015, IN
2 Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Ahmedabad 380 015

Abstract

Mars Colour Camera (MCC) on-board Mars Orbiter Mission is considered the ‘eye’ of the mission, taking photographs (imageries) of the surfacial features on Mars, and the cloud and dust around it. MCC is an important contextual camera for other non-imaging sensors like MSM, TIS, LAP, etc. The camera has been designed, characterized, calibrated and qualified at the Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad by a team of professional engineers and scientists. It has been miniaturized, ruggedized and space-qualified to match the weight and power budget of the mission. During Earth orbit phase, the images returned by the camera have been analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. The results show that MCC has been working as expected in terms of radiometry, geometry and application potential to discern various morphological features. The present article discusses these facts in detail.

Keywords

Detector, Earth imaging phase, payload, Mars colour camera.

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Kurian Mathew ¹, S. S. Sarkar ¹, A. R. Srinivas ¹, Moumita Dutta ¹, Minal x Minal Rohit ¹, Harish Seth ¹, Rajiv Kumaran ¹, Kshitij Pandya ¹, Ankush Kumar ¹, Jitendra Sharma ¹, Jalshri Desai ¹, Amul Patel ¹, Vishnu Patel ¹, Piyush Shukla ¹, S. Manthira Moorthi ¹, Aravind K. Singh ¹, Ashutosh Gupta ¹, Jaya Rathi ¹, P. Narayana Babu ¹, Saji A. Kuriakose ¹, D. R. M. Samudraiah ¹, A. S. Kiran Kumar ¹

Affiliations
1 Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Ahmedabad 380 058, IN

Abstract

Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM), on-board Mars Orbiter Mission is a differential radiometer based on Fabry–Perot Etalon (FPE) filters which measures column density of methane in the Martian atmosphere. It is the first FPE sensor ever flown to space. Spectral, spatial and radiometric performances of the sensor were characterized thoroughly during the pre-launch calibration. Geophysical calibration of the sensor was carried out using the data acquired over Sahara desert during Earth Parking Orbit phase. Retrieval algorithm for MSM, which is based on the linearization of radiative transfer equations, gets simultaneous solutions for CH4 and CO2 concentrations in the Martian atmosphere.

Keywords

Differential radiometer, Fabry–Perot Etalon, geophysical calibration, methane sensor, retrieval algorithm.

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R. P. Singh ¹, Somya S. Sarkar ¹, Manoj Kumar ¹, Anish Saxena ¹, U. S. H. Rao ¹, Arun Bhardwaj ¹, Jalshri Desai ¹, Jitendra Sharma ¹, Amul Patel ¹, Yogesh Shinde ¹, Hemant Arora ¹, A. R. Srinivas ¹, Jaya Rathi ¹, Hitesh Patel ¹, Meenakshi Sarkar ¹, Arpita Gajaria ¹, S. Manthira Moorthi ¹, Mehul R. Pandya ¹, Ashwin Gujrati ¹, Prakash Chauhan ¹, Kuriakose A. Saji ¹, D. R. M. Samudraiah ¹, A. S. Kiran Kumar ²

Affiliations
1 Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Ahmedabad 380 058, IN
2 Indian Space Research Organisation, Bengaluru 560 231, IN

Abstract

Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS), which operates in the infrared spectral region (7-13 μm), is one of the five instruments on-board the Mars Orbiting Mission (MOM). TIS was designed to detect emitted thermal infrared radiation from the Martian environment, which would enable the estimation of ground temperature of the surface of Mars and also map its surface composition. TIS instrument is a grating-based spectrometer which has spatial resolution of 258 m at periapsis (372 km). TIS hardware was realized with light-weight miniaturized components (total weight 3.2 kg) with power requirement of 6 W. Observations from TIS instrument were carried out during Earth-bound manoeuvres and cruise phase operations of MOM and the results were found to be in agreement with the laboratory measurements.

Keywords

Aerosol Optical Thickness, Mars Orbiter, Minerals Detection, Thermal Infrared Spectroscopy.

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Kurian Mathew ¹, A. S. Arya ¹, Harish Seth ¹, S. Manthira Moorthi ¹, P. N. Babu ¹

Affiliations
1 Space Applications Center, Indian Space Research Organisation, Ahmedabad 380 015, IN

Abstract

Mars Colour Camera on-board the Mars Orbital Mission makes use of a Bayer pattern detector. Spectral response of RGB (red, green and blue) pixels of Bayer detector shows large overlap which reduces the spectral information content of the image. In the present paper, a simple method is suggested to correct the data for spectral overlap. It is shown that correction process significantly increases the spectral information content of the image and enhances the ability of the sensor to identify different target types like dust clouds and water ice clouds.

Keywords

Bayer-Pattern Filters, Dust Clouds, Ice Clouds, Mars Colour Camera, Spectral Overlap.

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S. Manthira Moorthi ¹, D. Dhar ¹, R. Sivakumar ²

Affiliations
1 Signal and Image Processing Area, Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Ahmedabad 380 015, IN
2 Department of Civil Engineering, SRM University, Kattankulathur 603 203, IN

Abstract

We propose a solution for automatic co-registration of LISS-4 MX radiometrically conditioned multi-spectral images issue by considering an optimization problem in which mutual information-based approach is used. Co-registration of multi-spectral images from the same sensor may also be a tough problem to tackle, whenthe payload imaging geometry is complex. The multi-spectral images acquired by ISRO Resources at-1/2 LISS-4 MX class of sensors pose such problems and demand an automatic registration solution for system corrected product generation to cater to user needs. Optical remote sensing image registration is assisted by image geo-referencing or navigation information along with components such as feature detection, matching, correspondence, and resampling the input image to the reference geometry. Intensity-based methods employ an iterative registration framework,where similarity metric based image matching and correspondence is refined to find out optimum transform parameters. We could successfully employ mutual information-based adaptive stochastic gradient descent optimization algorithm to do sub-pixel level satellite image registration tasks by a careful choice of parameters and models related to metric, transform, optimizer, and interpolator in a robust image registration framework which is automatic for different terrain data. The performance is also compared to a recent scale invariant feature transform (SIFT)-based registration method.

Keywords

Image Registration, LISS-4, Mutual Information, Optimization.

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S. Manthira Moorthi ¹, R. Sivakumar ²

Affiliations
1 Signal and Image Processing Area, Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organisation, Ahmedabad 380 015, IN
2 Department of Civil Engineering, SRM University, Kattankulathur 603 203, IN

Abstract

Information-oriented intensity-based cost functions are generally used for optimization frameworks in automatic satellite image registration. Optimization mechanics which updates the transform parameters in the iterative loop requires estimation of derivatives of the cost function to set-up update rules that retrieve the deformation model between the image pairs. Application of stochastic approximation of cost function and its derivatives for solving optimization problems while the objective function is non-differentiable or non-smooth or computed with noise is encountered in real-world problems. The known methods of approximation for solving these problems use the idea of stochastic gradient and certain rules of changing the step length for ensuring convergence. In this article, satellite image coregistration problem is chosen for comparing the performance of two important stochastic optimizers like adaptive stochastic gradient descent and simultaneous perturbation stochastic approximation. Coregistration datasets from Resourcesat-2 LISS-4 MX sensor are chosen for different terrains and features to study subpixel accuracies of order better than 1/20th of a pixel achieved in the comparison of two different optimization techniques employed in intensity-based automatic image registration framework.

Keywords

Coregistration Problem, Remote Sensing, Satellite Image, Simultaneous Perturbation, Stochastic Optimization.

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