147 research outputs found
BDS GNSS for Earth Observation
For millennia, human communities have wondered about the possibility of observing
phenomena in their surroundings, and in particular those affecting the Earth on which they live.
More generally, it can be conceptually defined as Earth observation (EO) and is the collection of
information about the biological, chemical and physical systems of planet Earth. It can be undertaken
through sensors in direct contact with the ground or airborne platforms (such as weather balloons and
stations) or remote-sensing technologies. However, the definition of EO has only become significant
in the last 50 years, since it has been possible to send artificial satellites out of Earthâs orbit.
Referring strictly to civil applications, satellites of this type were initially designed to provide
satellite images; later, their purpose expanded to include the study of information on land
characteristics, growing vegetation, crops, and environmental pollution. The data collected are used
for several purposes, including the identification of natural resources and the production of accurate
cartography. Satellite observations can cover the land, the atmosphere, and the oceans.
Remote-sensing satellites may be equipped with passive instrumentation such as infrared or
cameras for imaging the visible or active instrumentation such as radar. Generally, such satellites are
non-geostationary satellites, i.e., they move at a certain speed along orbits inclined with respect to the
Earthâs equatorial plane, often in polar orbit, at low or medium altitude, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and
Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), thus covering the entire Earthâs surface in a certain scan time (properly
called âtemporal resolutionâ), i.e., in a certain number of orbits around the Earth.
The first remote-sensing satellites were the American NASA/USGS Landsat Program;
subsequently, the European: ENVISAT (ENVironmental SATellite), ERS (European Remote-Sensing
satellite), RapidEye, the French SPOT (Satellite Pour lâObservation de laTerre), and the Canadian
RADARSAT satellites were launched. The IKONOS, QuickBird, and GeoEye-1 satellites were
dedicated to cartography. The WorldView-1 and WorldView-2 satellites and the COSMO-SkyMed
system are more recent. The latest generation are the low payloads called Small Satellites, e.g., the
Chinese BuFeng-1 and Fengyun-3 series.
Also, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs) have captured the attention of researchers
worldwide for a multitude of Earth monitoring and exploration applications. On the other hand,
over the past 40 years, GNSSs have become an essential part of many human activities. As is widely
noted, there are currently four fully operational GNSSs; two of these were developed for military
purposes (American NAVstar GPS and Russian GLONASS), whilst two others were developed for
civil purposes such as the Chinese BeiDou satellite navigation system (BDS) and the European
Galileo. In addition, many other regional GNSSs, such as the South Korean Regional Positioning
System (KPS), the Japanese quasi-zenital satellite system (QZSS), and the Indian Regional Navigation
Satellite System (IRNSS/NavIC), will become available in the next few years, which will have
enormous potential for scientific applications and geomatics professionals.
In addition to their traditional role of providing global positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT)
information, GNSS navigation signals are now being used in new and innovative ways. Across the
globe, new fields of scientific study are opening up to examine how signals can provide information
about the characteristics of the atmosphere and even the surfaces from which they are reflected before
being collected by a receiver.
EO researchers monitor global environmental systems using in situ and remote monitoring tools.
Their findings provide tools to support decision makers in various areas of interest, from security
to the natural environment. GNSS signals are considered an important new source of information
because they are a free, real-time, and globally available resource for the EO community
Towards Generic Planning of Optical Links
The paper at hand presents our concept for upcoming space-ground optical Mission Planning systems at DLR GSOC. In cooperation with TESAT we have more than 15 years of operational experience for optical links. We have thoroughly discussed challenges and needs of optical mission planning systems to enable potential customers for deployment of full end-to-end systems. While earlier systems such as TDP-1 (Technical Demonstration Project) or EDRS (European Data Relay System) had individual requirements and interfaces, the new system is capable to consider ad-hoc additional requirements and generic interfaces. This flexibility is a big step towards our goal of a fully interoperable control center infrastructure. We show in the paper at hand how the new concept will be implemented and validated. The developed architecture is based upon the "Program for INteractive Timeline Analysis" (PINTA). PINTA enables the User in this specific use case to manually schedule links from a set of precalculated visibilities and trigger an automated link export for both optical terminals (on ground and in orbit) for their execution. At first, PINTA will be used offline for scheduling the links of the new DLR optical ground station AlmerĂa; in the frame of the Global Optical Ground Station Network (GlobeON). The subsequent development step will result in embedding these functionalities in another architecture which builds upon the new generic interfaces, replacing PINTA with the GSOC's generic Reactive Planning framework and its frontend PintaOnWeb for visual support, modification and analysis. This tool suite will allow for automatically triggered incremental planning runs immediately upon reception of new input (e.g. orbit updates, spacecraft and ground station unavailability) instead of manually initiated runs or semi-automated planning at fixed intervals. Finally, more elaborated interactions with the spacecraft and ground station operations and the prediction as well as real-time information about local weather conditions are aimed to be included into the automated planning process
Land Surface Monitoring Based on Satellite Imagery
This book focuses attention on significant novel approaches developed to monitor land surface by exploiting satellite data in the infrared and visible ranges. Unlike in situ measurements, satellite data provide global coverage and higher temporal resolution, with very accurate retrievals of land parameters. This is fundamental in the study of climate change and global warming. The authors offer an overview of different methodologies to retrieve land surface parametersâ evapotranspiration, emissivity contrast and water deficit indices, land subsidence, leaf area index, vegetation height, and crop coefficientâall of which play a significant role in the study of land cover, land use, monitoring of vegetation and soil water stress, as well as early warning and detection of forest ïŹres and drought
Venus Evolution Through Time: Key Science Questions, Selected Mission Concepts and Future Investigations
In this work we discuss various selected mission concepts addressing Venus evolution through time. More specifically, we address investigations and payload instrument concepts supporting scientific goals and open questions presented in the companion articles of this volume. Also included are their related investigations (observations & modeling) and discussion of which measurements and future data products are needed to better constrain Venusâ atmosphere, climate, surface, interior and habitability evolution through time. A new fleet of Venus missions has been selected, and new mission concepts will continue to be considered for future selections. Missions under development include radar-equipped ESA-led EnVision M5 orbiter mission (European Space Agency 2021), NASA-JPLâs VERITAS orbiter mission (Smrekar et al. 2022a), NASA-GSFCâs DAVINCI entry probe/flyby mission (Garvin et al. 2022a). The data acquired with the VERITAS, DAVINCI, and EnVision from the end of this decade will fundamentally improve our understanding of the planetâs long term history, current activity and evolutionary path. We further describe future mission concepts and measurements beyond the current framework of selected missions, as well as the synergies between these mission concepts, ground-based and space-based observatories and facilities, laboratory measurements, and future algorithmic or modeling activities that pave the way for the development of a Venus program that extends into the 2040s (Wilson et al. 2022)
Dutkat: A Privacy-Preserving System for Automatic Catch Documentation and Illegal Activity Detection in the Fishing Industry
United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 14 aims to conserve and sustainably use the oceans and their resources for the benefit of people and the planet. This includes protecting marine ecosystems, preventing pollution, and overfishing, and increasing scientific understanding of the oceans. Achieving this goal will help ensure the health and well-being of marine life and the millions of people who rely on the oceans for their livelihoods. In order to ensure sustainable fishing practices, it is important to have a system in place for automatic catch documentation.
This thesis presents our research on the design and development of Dutkat, a privacy-preserving, edge-based system for catch documentation and detection of illegal activities in the fishing industry. Utilising machine learning techniques, Dutkat can analyse large amounts of data and identify patterns that may indicate illegal activities such as overfishing or illegal discard of catch. Additionally, the system can assist in catch documentation by automating the process of identifying and counting fish species, thus reducing potential human error and increasing efficiency. Specifically, our research has consisted of the development of various components of the Dutkat system, evaluation through experimentation, exploration of existing data, and organization of machine learning competitions. We have also implemented it from a compliance-by-design perspective to ensure that the system is in compliance with data protection laws and regulations such as GDPR. Our goal with Dutkat is to promote sustainable fishing practices, which aligns with the Sustainable Development Goal 14, while simultaneously protecting the privacy and rights of fishing crews
The ESPAS e-infrastructure
ESPAS provides an e-Infrastructure to support access to a wide range of archived observations and model derived data for the near-Earth space environment, extending from the Earth's middle atmosphere up to the outer radiation belts. To this end, ESPAS will serve as a central access hub for researchers who wish to exploit multi-instrument multipoint data for scientific discovery, model development and validation, and data assimilation, among others. Observation based and model enhanced scientific understanding of the physical state of the Earth's space environment and its evolution is critical to advancing space weather and space climate studies, two very active branches of current scientific research. ESPAS offers an interoperable data infrastructure that enables users to find, access, and exploit near-Earth space environment observations from ground-based and spaceborne instruments and data from relevant models, obtained from distributed repositories. In order to facilitate efficient user queries ESPAS allows a highly flexible workflow scheme to select and request the desired data sets. ESPAS has the strategic goal of making Europe a leading player in the efficient use and dissemination of near-Earth space environment information offered by institutions, laboratories and research teams in Europe and worldwide, that are active in collecting, processing and distributing scientific data. Therefore, ESPAS is committed to support and foster new data providers who wish to promote the easy use of their data and models by the research community via a central access framework. ESPAS is open to all potential users interested in near-Earth space environment data, including those who are active in basic scientific research, technical or operational development and commercial applications
Examining Ecosystem Drought Responses Using Remote Sensing and Flux Tower Observations
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Water is fundamental for plant growth, and vegetation response to water availability influences water, carbon, and energy exchanges between land and atmosphere. Vegetation plays the most active role in water and carbon cycle of various ecosystems. Therefore, comprehensive evaluation of drought impact on vegetation productivity will play a critical role for better understanding the global water cycle under future climate conditions.
In-situ meteorological measurements and the eddy covariance flux tower network, which provide meteorological data, and estimates of ecosystem productivity and respiration are remarkable tools to assess the impacts of drought on ecosystem carbon and water cycles. In regions with limited in-situ observations, remote sensing can be a very useful tool to monitor ecosystem drought status since it provides continuous observations of relevant variables linked to ecosystem function and the hydrologic cycle. However, the detailed understanding of ecosystem responses to drought is still lacking and it is challenging to quantify the impacts of drought on ecosystem carbon balance and several factors hinder our explicit understanding of the complex drought impacts. This dissertation addressed drought monitoring, ecosystem drought responses, trends of vegetation water constraint based on in-situ metrological observations, flux tower and multi-sensor remote sensing observations. This dissertation first developed a new integrated drought index applicable across diverse climate regions based on in-situ meteorological observations and multi-sensor remote sensing data, and another integrated drought index applicable across diverse climate regions only based on multi-sensor remote sensing data. The dissertation also evaluated the applicability of new satellite dataset (e.g., solar induced fluorescence, SIF) for responding to meteorological drought. Results show that satellite SIF data could have the potential to reflect meteorological drought, but the application should be limited to dry regions. The work in this dissertation also accessed changes in water constraint on global vegetation productivity, and quantified different drought dimensions on ecosystem productivity and respiration. Results indicate that a significant increase in vegetation water constraint over the last 30 years. The results highlighted the need for a more explicit consideration of the influence of water constraints on regional and global vegetation under a warming climate
Implementation of Sensors and Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Hazards Assessment in Urban, Agriculture and Forestry Systems
The implementation of artificial intelligence (AI), together with robotics, sensors, sensor networks, Internet of Things (IoT), and machine/deep learning modeling, has reached the forefront of research activities, moving towards the goal of increasing the efficiency in a multitude of applications and purposes related to environmental sciences. The development and deployment of AI tools requires specific considerations, approaches, and methodologies for their effective and accurate applications. This Special Issue focused on the applications of AI to environmental systems related to hazard assessment in urban, agriculture, and forestry areas
Remote Sensing in Agriculture: State-of-the-Art
The Special Issue on âRemote Sensing in Agriculture: State-of-the-Artâ gives an exhaustive overview of the ongoing remote sensing technology transfer into the agricultural sector. It consists of 10 high-quality papers focusing on a wide range of remote sensing models and techniques to forecast crop production and yield, to map agricultural landscape and to evaluate plant and soil biophysical features. Satellite, RPAS, and SAR data were involved. This preface describes shortly each contribution published in such Special Issue
The future of energy transition between critical materials and geopolitics. Lithium and the South American context
L'abstract Ăš presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen
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