In the last decades the scientific community has increasingly used satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data to improve the understanding of geophysics phenomena in many fields (e.g. geology, hydrology, glaciology, climatology, volcanology) as well as in civilian and environmental engineering. In this context, an additional step forward was provided by the new generation of X-Band very high-resolution SAR sensors, such as those hosted onboard the Italian COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) satellites, able to provide an exceptional capability of collecting dense interferometric data stacks in a short time interval (i.e. few months) with a resolution allowing to monitor single facilities in detail. In many case studies, the available CSK historical series of displacements highlighted the presence of localized deformation points, for example affecting cultural heritage buildings or of potential concern for the stability of bridges and railway networks. This highlights the maturity achieved by this technology widely used also by municipalities and public bodies for monitoring structures and infrastructures. Since 2008, ASI has strongly supported the exploitation of this kind of satellite data and in 2015, following the previous successful experiences, decided to encourage the international scientific community and the national Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) through two dedicated “COSMO-SkyMed Open Call” initiatives. In this framework, this paper presents some selected case studies for structure and infrastructure monitoring and the related results, focusing the discussion on the recent developments and observed trends for both scientific and commercial communities, at both national and international levels.
COSMO-SkyMed di Seconda Generazione (CSG) will ensure operational continuity to the currently operating "first generation" CSK constellation. The CSG constellation will consist of two satellites in Low Earth Orbit equipped with an X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). The CSG program is managed and co-financed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Italian Ministry of Defence. A wider portfolio of Spotlight imaging modes is offered with respect to CSK, among which there are new Spotlight civilian sub-metric modes. Furthermore, products acquired with squinted attitude (i.e. mean pitch angle during the acquisition different by zero) or with multi-swath approach could be used to serve more requests in a defined area, that otherwise could not be served because of conflict for time gap violation. Upgraded Spotlight focusing algorithms have been developed in order to correctly manage side-effects on the SAR Impulse Response Function (IRF) image quality depending on the long integration time and squinted geometry. The paper presents the new Spotlight processing algorithm enhancements providing details about design, implementation and verification results. Image quality and processor time performances have been assessed by simulated data representative of the various operational Spotlight CSG acquisition modes.
COSMO-SkyMed is a dual-use program for both civilian and defense provides user community (institutional and commercial) with SAR data in several environmental applications. In the context of COSMO-SkyMed data and User management, one of the aspects carefully monitored is the user satisfaction level, it is links to satisfaction of submitted user requests. The operational experience of the first years of operational phase, and the consequent lessons learnt by the COSMO-SkyMed data and user management, have demonstrated that a lot of acquisition rejections are due to conflicts (time conflicts or system conflicts) among two or more civilian user requests, and they can be managed and solved implementing an improved coordination of users and their requests on a daily basis. With this aim a new Service Support Tool (SST) has been designed and developed to support the operators in the User Request coordination. The Tool allow to analyze conflicts among Acquisition Requests (ARs) before the National Rankization phase and to elaborate proposals for conflict resolution. In this paper the most common causes of the occurred rejections will be showed, for example as the impossibility to aggregate different orders, and the SST functionalities will be described, in particular how it works to remove or minimize the conflicts among different orders.
KEYWORDS: Content addressable memory, Data acquisition, Synthetic aperture radar, Satellites, Data archive systems, Defense and security, Image processing, Computer programming, Image segmentation, X band
COSMO-SkyMed (CSK), is an Earth Observation joint program between Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (Italian Space Agency, ASI) and Italian Ministry of Defense (It-MoD). It consists of a constellation of four X Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) whose first satellite of has been launched on June 2007. Today the full constellation is fully qualified and is in an operative phase. The COSMO-SkyMed System includes 3 Segments: the Space Segment, the Ground Segment and the Integrated Logistic Support and Operations Segment (ILS and OPS) As part of a more complex re-engineering process aimed to improve the expected constellation lifetime, to fully exploit several system capabilities, to manage the obsolescence, to reduce the maintenance costs and to exploit the entire constellation capability for Civilian users a series of activities have been performed. In the next months these activities are planned to be completed and start to be operational so that it will be possible the programming, planning, acquisition, raw processing and archiving of all the images that the constellation can acquire.
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