Intensity Simulation of a Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer

Abstract

This paper introduces an intensity simulation for the Fourier transform infrared spectrometer whose core element is the Michelson interferometer to provide support for the on-orbit monitoring of the instrument and to improve the data processing and application of the Fourier transform spectrometer. The Geostationary Interferometric Infrared Imager (GIIRS) aboard on Fengyun-4B (FY-4B) satellite, which will be launched in 2020, aims to provide hyperspectral infrared observations. An intensity simulation of the Michelson interferometer based on the GIIRS’s instrument parameters is systematically analyzed in this paper. Off-axis effects and non-linearity response are two important factors to be considered in this simulation. Off-axis effects mainly cause the wavenumber shift to induce a large brightness temperature error compared with the input spectrum, and the non-linearity response reduces the energy received by the detector. Then, off-axis effects and a non-linearity response are added to the input spectrum successively to obtain the final spectrum. Off-axis correction and non-linearity correction are also developed to give a full simulation process. Comparing the corrected spectrum with the input spectrum, we can see that the brightness temperature errors have a magnitude of 10−3 K, and this fully proves the reliability and rationality of the whole simulation process.