Noise analysis and measurement of time delay and integration charge coupled device

Time delay and integration (TDI) charge coupled device (CCD) noise sets a fundamental limit on image sensor performance, especially under low illumination in remote sensing applications. After introducing the complete sources of CCD noise, we study the effects of TDI operation mode on noise, and the relationship between different types of noise and number of the TDI stage. Then we propose a new technique to identify and measure sources of TDI CCD noise employing mathematical statistics theory, where theoretical analysis shows that noise estimated formulation converges well. Finally, we establish a testing platform to carry out experiments, and a standard TDI CCD is calibrated by using the proposed method. The experimental results show that the noise analysis and measurement methods presented in this paper are useful for modeling TDI CCDs.