Assessment of Remote Sensing Image Quality and its Application Due to Off-Nadir Imaging Acquisition

One advantage of using microsatellites for remote sensing is their maneuverability so that the target area can be captured from any viewing angle based on specific needs. However, the image captured under off-nadir acquisition will have reduced quality in both geometry and radiometric aspects. This research aims to find the effect of off-nadir acquisition on remote sensing image quality in general and its accuracy on land use land cover (LULC) application based on LAPAN-A3 microsatellite image data. Both images from the nadir and off-nadir acquisition of one specific target, which had several days/weeks difference, are compared to the nearest Landsat-8 image data. Based on several target images used in this research, the imaging viewing angle indeed affects the quality of the remote sensing images, both in general image quality and land use land cover application accuracy. The degradation of LULC accuracy can be considered acceptable however, where in general, it can be modeled to -0.5 percent/degree, i.e., an image taken under 20 degrees off-nadir acquisition will have reduced 10 percent accuracy. This result shows that the off-nadir microsatellite imaging technique can be used for specific remote sensing needs without compromising quality.