SPACE REMOTE SENSING SYSTEMS TRANSMISSION CAPABILITIES MODELING.

Space information, or information obtained by means of space remote sensing, is widely and effectively used by many countries to solve a lot of scientific, technical and applied problems. Most manufacturers of space remote sensing systems declared the high resolution values of their systems. However, these values are computed theoretically, without considering the various factors affected them. To determine the real resolution of the system, we have considered mathematical modeling which describes the influence of different factors on the satellite images resolution. Some of these factors are: atmosphere turbulence, image shift, residual defocusing, and diffraction. One of the most important characteristic of the images resolution is the modulation transfer function (MTF) which allows the estimation of different factors affected on the image resolution. The modulation transfer function (MTF) is a fundamental tool for assessing the performance of imaging systems. Various authors [Zhang et al. 2012, Hwang et al. 2008, Ryan et al. 2003] investigate different MTF assessment methods of high resolution satellite images: a slant-edge method, a knife-edge method, a sine wave method and a grill pattern. We propose a generalized approach for MTF assessment based on theoretical assumptions which allows to determine the influence of different factors. A comparative analysis of the modulation transfer function(s) for different space imaging systems shows that the image resolution depends mainly on the atmosphere turbulence and size of a sensor element. Additionally, we established that atmospheric turbulence significantly reduces the transmitting possibility of images. The parameters which describe the influence of turbulence required additional studies. The main goal of our researches is to show that real spatial image(s) resolution is much "inferior" than the value provided by the manufacturers of space remote sensing systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]