Evaluating positional accuracy of Pleiades 1A satellite imagery in exploiting foreign natural resources

In this research, we’ve carried out a geo-positioning accuracy test for the unaccessable area using Pleiades 1A satellite image which was captured in 2014 for the city of Yakutsk, Russia with 50 cm spatial resolution. The research area has been considered as a candidate site for the oversea resources development and on-site field surveying of the area has not been possible so far. There were two difficulties to use Pleiades 1A for the research area. First, we had to use inaccurate ground control points due to inaccessibility of research area. Second, there were huge differences between real-world terrain of Yakutsk and the calculated height range by the normalized offset and scale parameters of the vendor-provided rational polynomial coefficients (RPCs). We’ve tried to enhance geo-positioning accuracy by sorting out these two difficulties and finally tried to evaluate the usability of Pleiades 1A for the unaccessible area. We’ve applied the direct method for RPCs refinement by using control points captured from Google Earth and ASTER Global Digital Elevation Models (GDEM). As a result of this method, we were able to improve the vertical-accuracy significantly. However we also found that this method didn’t improve the horizontal-accuracy, because of low accuracy of reference points from Google Earth or GDEM. It is required to carry out additional research to improve the geo-positioning accuracy of Pleiades 1A image for the unaccessible area.