System and method for vicarious calibration of optical data from satellite sensors

A system comprising:

• an input/output interface to receive an image of a scene from at least one satellite sensor;
• a memory in communication with the one or more hardware processors, wherein the one or more hardware processors are configured to execute programmed instructions stored in the memory to:
• calculate an internal average relative reflectance (IAR) on the received image to get a relative reflectance of the received image;
• determine band ratios for each of the one or more pixels of the received image with each successive band to assess flatness of a spectrum of the one or more pixels;
• calculate a mean value, a standard deviation, and a variance of the one or more pixels;
• apply a threshold over the calculated mean value to get an average band ratio near to one and a threshold over the calculated variance to get a band ratio variance near to zero of the one or more pixels;
• identify at least one flat field candidate from the one or more pixels of the received image having the average band ratio nearing one;
• determine a flat field from the identified at least one flat field candidate by applying a predefined morphological technique;
• and
• calibrate the received image vicariously with the determined flat field as a test site.

One or more non-transitory machine-readable information storage mediums comprising one or more instructions which when executed by one or more hardware processors cause:

• receiving, via an input/output interface, an image of a scene from at least one satellite sensor;
• calculating an internal average relative reflectance (IAR) on the received image to get a relative reflectance of the received image;
• determining band ratios for each of the one or more pixels of the received image with each successive band to assess flatness of a spectrum of the one or more pixels;
• calculating a mean value, a standard deviation, and a variance of the one or more pixels;
• applying:
• a threshold over the calculated mean value to get an average band ratio near to one, and
• a threshold over the calculated variance to get a band ratio variance near to zero of the one or more pixels;
• identifying at least one flat field candidate from the one or more pixels of the received image having the average band ratio nearing one;
• determining a flat field from the identified at least one flat field candidate by applying a predefined morphological technique;
• and
• calibrating the received image vicariously with the determined flat field as a test site.