Detection and Correction of Relative Attitude Errors for ZY1-02C

Ziyuan1-02C (ZY1-02C) was launched on December 22, 2011, and it is the first civilian high-resolution remote sensing satellite in China. However, the limited precision of the onboard attitude measurement system causes many errors during attitude transfer by ZY1-02C. Thus, there are complex distortions in the images obtained by ZY1-02C, which restricts its application greatly. In this paper, we consider the feasibility of attitude error correction based on parallel observations with high-resolution cameras, and the method is described in detail. To validate the efficiency of the proposed method, several images and corresponding control data were collected from the Henan, Taihang Mountain, Neimeng, and Taiyuan areas in China. The experimental results indicate that seamless mosaic images without distortion can be obtained using our method. Furthermore, the positioning accuracy with a few ground control points (GCPs) was shown to be better than 1.5 pixels and equivalent to the accuracy of the GCPs.