# Wide Field Camera
*sensor . products*

Four-channel VIS/NIR wide-field camera carried by GF-1 and GF-6, with 16 m resolution and 800 km swath for land and vegetation monitoring.

## Specifications
- **product status**: operational
- **deployment context**: orbital
- **manufacturer**: sast
- **sensor**: {"instrument_family":"passive-optical","measurement_principle":"passive","spectral_range_nm":{"min":450,"max":890},"spectral_band_count":4,"gsd_m":{"native":16},"swath_km":800}
- **entity type**: sensor
- **last verified date**: 2026-06-15
- **verified by**: agency-doc
- **claim status**: agency-sourced
- **provider**: sast
- **attributes**: {"kind":"sensor","product_status":"operational","deployment_context":"orbital","manufacturer":"sast","description":"Four-channel VIS/NIR wide-field camera carried by GF-1 and GF-6, with 16 m resolution and 800 km swath for land and vegetation monitoring.","sensor":"{\"instrument_family\":\"passive-optical\",\"measurement_principle\":\"passive\",\"spectral_range_nm\":{\"min\":450,\"max\":890},\"spectral_band_count\":4,\"gsd_m\":{\"native\":16},\"swath_km\":800}"}
- **relevance**: in-scope

## Editorial
The Wide Field Camera (WFV) is a passive-optical pushbroom instrument designed for large-area land and vegetation monitoring.[^wmo-wfv] The instrument configuration differs between platforms in band count and detector technology.

On Gaofen-1, four WFV cameras are mounted side-by-side to achieve a combined swath of approximately 830 km.[^eoportal-gf1] This configuration covers four spectral bands: blue (450-520 nm), green (520-590 nm), red (630-690 nm), and near-infrared (770-890 nm), at 16 m ground sampling distance, using CCD array detectors with pushbroom and TDI scanning.[^eoportal-gf1]

On Gaofen-6, the WFV carries eight spectral bands at the same 16 m resolution across an 800 km swath.[^pmc-gf6-wfv] In addition to the four bands shared with the Gaofen-1 version, the Gaofen-6 WFV adds coastal (400-450 nm), yellow (590-630 nm), red-edge 1 (690-730 nm), and red-edge 2 (730-770 nm) bands, and uses CMOS detectors.[^pmc-gf6-wfv]

Documented applications include vegetation monitoring, land cover classification, NDVI computation, leaf area index and fractional vegetation cover retrieval, and precision agriculture. Crop identification using the red-edge and yellow bands is specific to the Gaofen-6 configuration.[^pmc-gf6-wfv] [^wmo-wfv]

## Compositional position
- gaofen-1 (missions) --[mission_payloads]--> Wide Field Camera
- gaofen-6 (missions) --[mission_payloads]--> Wide Field Camera

## Sources
- [wmo-wfv] | WMO OSCAR instrument record: WFV | https://space.oscar.wmo.int/instruments/view/wfv | tier=agency-doc | accessed=2026-06-15
- [eoportal-gf1] | GF-1 (Gaofen-1) - eoPortal mission page | https://www.eoportal.org/satellite-missions/gaofen-1 | tier=community | accessed=2026-06-15
- [pmc-gf6-wfv] | Crop Classification Based on Red Edge Features Analysis of GF-6 WFV Data | https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8271903/ | tier=peer-reviewed | accessed=2026-06-15
- [usgs-gf1] | USGS Open-File Report 2021-1030B: System Characterization Report on Gaofen-1 | https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/ofr20211030B | tier=agency-doc | accessed=2026-06-14 | published=2021-01-01
- [skyrocket-gf6] | Gaofen 6 (GF-6) - Gunter's Space Page | https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/gf-6.htm | tier=community | accessed=2026-06-15

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Source: https://eo-atlas.org/products/sensor/wfv
Maintainer: SpectraWorks B.V. (CC-BY 4.0)