Synthetic aperture radar imaging system for landmine detection using a ground penetrating radar on board a unmanned aerial vehicle

This paper presents a novel system to obtain images from the underground based on ground penetrating radar (GPR). The proposed system is composed by a radar module mounted on board an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which allows the safe inspection of difficult-to-access areas without being in direct contact with the soil. Therefore, it can be used to detect dangerous buried objects, such as landmines. The radar measurements are coherently combined using a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) algorithm, which requires cm-level accuracy positioning system. In addition, a clutter removal technique is applied to mitigate the reflection at the air-soil interface (which is caused by impedance mismatching). Besides the aforementioned advantages, the system can detect both metallic and dielectric targets (due to the use of a radar instead of a metal detector) and it allows to obtain high-resolution underground images (due to the SAR processing). The algorithms and the UAV payload are validated with measurements in both controlled and real scenarios, showing the feasibility of the proposed system.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad | Ref. TEC2014-54005-PMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad | Ref. TEC2014-55290-JINMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad | Ref. TEC2015-73908-JINMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad | Ref. TEC2015-65353-RAgencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. RYC-2016-20280Ministerio de Educación | Ref. FPU15/06341Gobierno del Principado de Asturias | Ref. PCTI 2013-2017Gobierno del Principado de Asturias | Ref. FC-15-GRUPIN14-114Gobierno del Principado de Asturias | Ref. IDI/2017/000095Xunta de Galicia | Ref. GRC2015/01

Spatio-temporal linking of multiple SAR satellite data from medium and high resolution Radarsat-2 images

A recent development in Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technology is integrating multiple SAR satellite data to dynamically extract ground features. This paper addresses two relevant challenges: identification of common ground targets from different SAR datasets in space, and concatenation of time series when dealing with temporal dynamics. To address the first challenge, we describe the geolocation uncertainty of InSAR measurements as a three-dimensional error ellipsoid. The points, among InSAR measurements, which have error ellipsoids with a positive cross volume are identified as tie-point pairs representing common ground objects from multiple SAR datasets. The cross volumes are calculated using Monte Carlo methods and serve as weights to achieve the equivalent deformation time series. To address the second challenge, the deformation time series model for each tie-point pair is estimated using probabilistic methods, where potential deformation models are efficiently tested and evaluated. As an application, we integrated two Radarsat-2 datasets in Standard and Extra-Fine modes to map the subsidence of the west of the Netherlands between 2010 and 2017. We identified 18128 tie-point pairs, 5 intersection types of error ellipsoids, 5 deformation models, and constructed their long-term deformation time series. The detected maximum mean subsidence velocity in Line-Of-Sight direction is up to 15 mmyr-1. We conclude that our method removes limitations that exist in single-viewing-geometry SAR when integrating multiple SAR data. In particular, the proposed time-series modeling method is useful to achieve a long-term deformation time series of multiple datasets

Cartography

The terrestrial space is the place of interaction of natural and social systems. The cartography is an essential tool to understand the complexity of these systems, their interaction and evolution. This brings the cartography to an important place in the modern world. The book presents several contributions at different areas and activities showing the importance of the cartography to the perception and organization of the territory. Learning with the past or understanding the present the use of cartography is presented as a way of looking to almost all themes of the knowledge

Status of the KM3NeT project

KM3NeT is a deep-sea research infrastructure being constructed in the Mediterranean Sea. It will be installed at three sites: KM3NeT-Fr, offshore Toulon, France, KM3NeT-It, offshore Portopalo di Capo Passero, Sicily (Italy) and KM3NeT-Gr, offshore Pylos, Peloponnese, Greece. It will host the next generation Cherenkov neutrino telescope and nodes for a deep sea multidisciplinary observatory, providing oceanographers, marine biologists, and geophysicists with real time measurements. The neutrino telescope will search for Galactic and extra-Galactic sources of neutrinos, complementing IceCube in its field of view. The detector will have a modular structure and consists of six building blocks, each including about one hundred Detection Units (DUs). Each DU will be equipped with 18 multi-PMT digital optical modules. The first phase of construction has started and shore and deep-sea infrastructures hosting the future KM3NeT detector are being prepared in France near Toulon and in Italy, near Capo Passero in Sicily. The technological solutions for KM3NeT and the expected performance of the detector are presented and discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, talk given at the 13th Topical Seminar on Innovative Particle and Radiation Detectors (IPRD13), 7-10 Oct 2013, Siena, Italy (http://www.dsfta.unisi.it/it/eventi/13th-topical-seminar-innovative-particle-and-radiation-detectors-iprd13

Selected Papers from the 2018 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for the Sea

This Special Issue is devoted to recent developments in instrumentation and measurement techniques applied to the marine field. ¶The sea is the medium that has allowed people to travel from one continent to another using vessels, even today despite the use of aircraft. It has also been acting as a great reservoir and source of food for all living beings. However, for many generations, it served as a landfill for depositing conventional and nuclear wastes, especially in its deep seabeds, and we are assisting in a race to exploit minerals and resources, different from foods, encompassed in it. Its health is a great challenge for the survival of all humanity since it is one of the most important environmental components targeted by global warming. ¶ As everyone may know, measuring is a step that generates substantial knowledge about a phenomenon or an asset, which is the basis for proposing correct solutions and making proper decisions. However, measurements in the sea environment pose unique difficulties and opportunities, which is made clear from the research results presented in this Special Issue

Data Requirements for Oceanic Processes in the Open Ocean, Coastal Zone, and Cryosphere

The type of information system that is needed to meet the requirements of ocean, coastal, and polar region users was examined. The requisite qualities of the system are: (1) availability, (2) accessibility, (3) responsiveness, (4) utility, (5) continuity, and (6) NASA participation. The system would not displace existing capabilities, but would have to integrate and expand the capabilities of existing systems and resolve the deficiencies that currently exist in producer-to-user information delivery options