A method and results of color calibration for the Chang'e-3 terrain camera and panoramic camera

Abstract

The terrain camera (TCAM) and panoramic camera (PCAM) are two of the major scientific payloads installed on the lander and rover of the Chang'e 3 mission respectively. They both use a Bayer color filter array covering CMOS sensor to capture color images of the Moon's surface. RGB values of the original images are related to these two kinds of cameras. There is an obvious color difference compared with human visual perception. This paper follows standards published by the International Commission on Illumination to establish a color correction model, designs the ground calibration experiment and obtains the color correction coefficient. The image quality has been significantly improved and there is no obvious color difference in the corrected images. Ground experimental results show that: (1) Compared with uncorrected images, the average color difference of TCAM is 4.30, which has been reduced by 62.1%. (2) The average color differences of the left and right cameras in PCAM are 4.14 and 4.16, which have been reduced by 68.3% and 67.6% respectively.