Driving toward a worldwide acceptance procedure for digital airborne sensors

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), with the cooperation of 14 other Federal agencies, has proposed a quality assurance plan for acquiring digital imagery in the United States. This plan is a result of cooperative work with sensor manufacturers, data providers, and the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). The plan identifies four key components affecting quality when acquiring digital imagery. The four components are 1) sensor type certification, 2) data provider certification, 3) contracting guidelines for procuring digital imagery, and 4) quality assessment guidelines. The implementation details in each component are still being developed and will be further refined; however, the sensor type certification component is the most mature and four key digital aerial sensors systems have completed certification. The sensor type certification process is being further refined through the lessons learned from the initial certifications and certification documentation has been updated. Currently, the sensor type certification approval is being considered as a requirement for procurements for use by officials in the United States. One primary concern is that manufacturers are generally required to perform some sort of acceptance test with each of their prospective buyers, and there is a different process used by each country for procurement and acceptance. Even though the USGS is informally discussing the possibility of a reciprocal sensor type certification process with European Spatial Data Research (EuroSDR), Australia, and Canada, there is no commonly accepted procedure that is universally used by all countries. In fact, many countries (e.g., Japan, China, and Russia) have purchased digital sensors and they each have independent acceptance processes. This paper describes the need to establish a process for certifying the acceptance of digital sensors on a worldwide basis.