ABSTRACT As the military community continues its reliance on imagery from airborne sensors, the need to standardize sensor models for current and future sensors becomes paramount. In support of this requirement, the Community Sensor Model (CSM) program was established within the Department of Defense. Through this program, users of airborne data are provided a common interface to all essential photogrammetric functions while maintaining proprietary aspects of the sensor, through the use of shared libraries. To date, sensor model validation has ensured that all function calls return values for variables in the correct format, as specified by the Interface Control Document (ICD). The authors propose an enhanced method of validation through the use of photogrammetric processes that quantitatively evaluates a CSM's functionality on mission imagery. To support this, the validation team has developed the Generic Software Exploitation Tool (GSET) that stresses the sensor model's essential capabilities: accurate ground-to-image and image-to-ground transformations, sensor model adjustability to account for possible systematic errors, and full rigorous error propagation. One of the most critical GSET functions proposed by the authors is the photogrammetric resection. Once the sensor model is run through this test, the control and checkpoint residuals resulting from the resection will be quantitatively analyzed for modeling quality and the presence of remaining systematic errors. Results are then reported to the CSM developer as feedback and refinement of CSM development until its final delivery
