<title>Instrumentation and procedures for validation of synthetic infrared image generation models</title>

This paper describes an experimental approach to validation of the radiometric integrity of an end-to-end thermal infrared SIG model. The approach attempts to break down the overall SIG model into a set of submodels with measurable input and output parameters. A scene is then instrumented and imaged in a time lapse fashion over an extended period. This scene is also synthetically produced so that the actual and synthetic scenes can be compared. The experimental approach includes acquisition of meteorological data, object data, atmospheric data, and image data. Error propagation models are used in conjunction with the experimental data to determine the source and relative importance of errors in the modeling process.