Dr. Oliver Lang
Airbus Defence and Space

Dr. Oliver Lang is the Head of SAR-monitoring services for Airbus Defence and Space. He is a geophysicist with more than 20 years of experience on the field of radar remote sensing and a strong expertise in interferometric data evaluation. He received his diploma in geophysics from the University of Munich and his PhD from the University of Wuerzburg in Germany.

Dr. Thomas Lege
BGR (German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources)

Dr. Thomas Lege holds a combined 30 years’ experience in both applied geosciences and waterway engineering. He graduated in Geophysics at University of Kiel and earned his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Hannover. Thomas gained application experience as a project engineer at the two German Federal Institutes for "Geosciences" and "Waterway Engineering". Since 2011, he has been head of the division "Geo-Hazard Assessment, Remote Sensing”, which brought the InSAR-based Ground Motion Service Germany online in 2019. Previously he headed the section "Inland Waterway Engineering" for nearly a decade. Recently, Dr. Lege became deputy head of the department "Geoscientific Information, International Cooperation".

Abstract

Nationwide Monitoring Service Using InSAR: Evolution of the Ground Motion Service Germany
The Ground Motion Service Germany (BBD) uses nationwide Persistent Scatterer Interferometry (PSI) data based on Sentinel-1 SAR data acquired from both ascending and descending orbit. More than 200 continuous Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations are used to calibrate and validate the PSI datasets. The Service is operated by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR). The objective of the BBD is to provide consistent, regular, standardized, harmonized and reliable information on natural and anthropogenic ground motion phenomena. Product reliability is a priority, time series resolution is 6 days for all of Germany followed by product updates every 12 months. In order to make the Sentinel-1 PSI data product usable by a broad public, the BBD WebGIS application was created and published. For performant interactive visualization of the mass PSI data, BigData WebGIS technology was used for the first time in the BGR spatial data infrastructure. Tools for explorative data analysis, additional nationwide data layers (e.g. regarding geology, mining, soil science), usage notes, download and a web map service as well as the linking in data repositories (e.g. GDI-DE/Geoportal.de, GEOSS/Geoportal.org) complete the BBD WebGIS application.

Dr. Paolo Pasquali
sarmap

Paolo has been enjoying the last 25 years investigating the many aspects of extracting useful and reliable information from Synthetic Aperture RADAR imagery, developing algorithms and exploring different applications. After realizing in his years in the academia at Politecnico di Milano and University of Zurich that these goals are not just dreams, he co-founded sarmap to bring this experience into operation, leading the development of the SARscape software package.

Keynote Session Abstract

Will SAR have a bright future?
How not to be optimistic? More SAR data, more interest and more people looking at the SAR technology as a new opportunity, these are clear developments of the recent years in Earth Observation.

But, still, as for Optical imagery, most of the exploitation of SAR data relates to simple visual interpretation of some kind of "pictures".

How to progress further? Some ideas and recommendations will be provided in this presentation, to help considering different approaches and goals to the whole wealth of information that can be extracted, with proper algorithms and tools, from SAR data.

Breakout Session Abstract

Defence and Security Applications of SAR : Wide-area, Hierarchical and Activity-based Structured Observation with satellite SAR technologies

Persistent monitoring of D&I-related activities is in principle a topic where satellite Synthetic Aperture RADAR sensors can provide very useful and actionable intelligence, thanks to the repeatability and weather-independency characteristics of this technology. The complexity of the problem can on the other hand increase significantly as soon as large geographic regions are the focus of interest, involving the analysis of datasets of thousands of images, in which case automation and Structured Observation Management become the only options for success.

After providing some background on the exploitation of SAR data for D&I applications, this contribution will present an approach that can successfully be exploited to monitor activities in large regions, discussing different components:

• Definition and characterization of Areas Of Interest at different priority levels according to SOM
• Exploitation of Medium-Resolution, high temporal revisit Sentinel-1 SAR data for wide-area monitoring
• Automated, incremental processing
• Extraction of Activity Indexes for the prioritized AOIs
• Identification of anomalies in the activities
• Triggering and collection of VHR SAR data
• Automated Target Detection and Recognition of aircrafts

The proposed approach will be demonstrated on a real case, concerning the monitoring of 35 Air Force Bases distributed over a territory of more than 1 million km2, over the time interval between August 2021 and February 2023, involving more than 1,800 images. Conclusions are drawn of the applicability of SAR technology and of the proposed approach in different contexts.

Dan Getman
Capella Space

Dan Getman is the VP of Product at Capella Space, building our product roadmap to ensure Capella’s innovations in SAR are empowering our customers to meet their mission and business objectives. Dan has over twenty years of experience generating insights from geospatial analytics and remote sensing supporting government and commercial applications.

Filippo Britti
e-GEOS

Filippo Britti, master’s degree in telecommunications engineering with remote sensing specialization. He has been working since 2006 in TELESPAZIO Earth-observation dept. that, on July 2009, became e-GEOS company. Technical manager for several projects focusing on EO data exploitation, since 2015 till 2019 he has been the product manager of the brAInt platform, the e-GEOS solution for satellite IMINT applications. Senior technical reference for EO imagery exploitation with advanced experience in SAR data and D&I applications, he participated to several national and international conferences on EO, SAR and D&I fields. He is also member of the team of instructors of e-GEOS training programme and has a long experience in teaching remote sensing fundamentals with specialization in very high resolution spaceborne SAR systems and related applications. He is currently head of the “Radar Application” organizational unit in the “Product Development and Innovation” O.U. and responsible for “Image Intelligence Product Development” in the “Defense, Intelligence and COSMO-SkyMed Global KAM” O.U.

Dimitris Kouhartsiouk
Geofem limited

Dimitris has 7 years of experience in SAR and InSAR applications. He has collaborated on numerous research projects alongside organizations such as the European Space Agency (ESA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). With a background in academia as a dedicated researcher, he have successfully transitioned to the industry, currently working at Geofem as a Geospatial Data Scientist focusing on research and development of SAR, InSAR and optical data products. Join Dimitris to learn more about the role InSAR technologies play in monitoring geohazards and discover how these tools aid in the timely identification of threats, enabling proactive measures and informed decision-making.

Abstract

Surface Motion Monitoring Using SAR Interferometric Techniques
Geohazards affect areas worldwide and constitute a significant risk to human activities, often accompanied by loss of life, destruction of property and infrastructure, with enormous economic consequences. Climate change and increase of world population which results in population settlement in hazardous areas has caused an increase of geohazard disasters globally. We discuss how satellite remote sensing combined with other sources of information can be combined for the development of susceptibility assessment for various geohazards. This development is used as a decision support system for infrastructure asset management for proactive maintenance and mitigation, allocation of resources, better planning and less disruption. Examples of assessing geohazards such as landslides and expansive clays combining SAR and other data using Artificial Intelligence are presented as means of maximising resilience of infrastructure and the built environment.

Dr. Salvatore Stramondo
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia

Laurea (M.S.) Degree in Electronic Engineering in 1996 - University “La Sapienza”, Rome, Italy; Ph.D. in Geoinformation in 2007 - University “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy. He joined the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) in 1997. From February 2017 is the Director of the National Earthquake Center (now National Earthquake Observatory) of Italy. He is author of more than 100 international papers and more than 120 conference talks. Chairman and Co-Chairman at several EGU and IGARSS. Since 2009 Editor of Remote Sensing journal and Associate Editor of IEEE GRS Letters.

Abstract

On February 6th, 2023 at 01:17:35 UTC a Mw 7.8 earthquake occurred about 15 km southeast of the mapped trace of the East Anatolian Fault Zone (EAFZ). About 9 hours later, at 10:24:49 UTC, a Mw 7.6 earthquake occurred along a separate structure to the north. Such two earthquakes can be considered the largest in the EAFZ system in instrumental times and produced the largest surface ground motions and widespread liquefaction phenomena. The coseismic displacement field due to this pair of mainshocks cover up more than to 400x400 km. In order to investigate the surface effects, the GEOSAR Lab. has acquired and processed a set of Sentinel-1 data covering the overall affected region, to analyze ground deformation patterns, while CosmoSkyMed data have been focused on the detection of damage in the urban areas within, by exploiting SAR intensity signals. The latter allowed to obtain damage proxy map on Kahramanmaras and Gaziantep cities, and on some other villages in the large epicentral region.

Patrick O’Keeffe
NATO Centre of Excellence for Operations (COE CSW)

PPatrick O’Keeffe is an international technology and security policy expert focusing on the multidisciplinary environment of aerospace, maritime, and cyber. With a background as CEO and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of technology companies, commercial pilot, commanding officer in the military as well as fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University (ISPK), Patrick O’Keeffe is supporting various entities in the transformation of aerospace, maritime, and cyber strategies and policies. Patrick O’Keeffe served as a German Navy Officer in various positions including the German Ministry of Defence and at a NATO Centre of Excellence, facilitating between NATO partners, organizations of the United Nations, academia and industry, and presents as guest speaker and opening keynote at technology and security conferences. An aerospace engineer specialized in unmanned systems and satellite operations and a former military aviator, Patrick O’Keeffe studied international law and economics and publishes on international security and space capabilities.

Dr. Simone Mancon
ARESYS s.r.l.

After getting his master’s degree and his Ph.D. in telecommunications engineering, Simone continued the research activities at Politecnico di Milano for 2 years and in 2018 he moved to ARESYS. Here he worked as SAR specialist and now leads the Data Analytics algorithms and applications team for EO.

Abstract

SAR Data Analytics to Increase the Energy Market Transparency
For the stakeholder of the energy market (traders, commodity producers, etc..) and, in particular for the oil market, the knowledge of commodities stock and its evolution is strategic to take short and long-term decisions and adequately react to market changes. In this framework, the monitoring services based on the remote sensing data are valuable tools providing an accurate and timely measure of the commodities stock. This webinar will provide an overview of an oil stock monitoring solution based on SAR data, and some of the challenges dealt with to make it a reliable service ready for the energy market.

Dr. Emlyn Hagen
L3Harris Geospatial

Dr. Emlyn Hagen is a Senior Manager at L3Harris Geospatial and he is responsible for the DACH/NL territory. Emlyn’s passion for remote sensing started 20 years ago at the DLR in Germany and CRISP in Singapore, and uses his skills today to provide innovative, realistic and focused remote sensing solutions to clients.

Before joining L3Harris, Emlyn was CTO of iMMAP and leading the USAID funded Disaster Risk Reduction Program in Afghanistan (2015-2018). For 8 years Emlyn supported the NATO CI Agency as a geospatial expert. He worked in theater support for Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan as on various NATO GIS/RS research projects. The execution of the “Afghanistan Flood Hazard Map” project was highly visible, and it was nominated for the World Future Foundation (WFF) award.

Emlyn was the Lead Geographic Information Manager for the Shell Oil operations in Jordan (2010-2015). His work on "Communication Access and Proximity Maps" was nominated for the Shell CEO Global HSSE Award. It resulted into effective and safe operations for the 300 staff exploring a 20.000 km² hostile desert environment. Additionally, he was the Geomatics Technical Adviser of a 1.2 Billion US$ project.

Emlyn has published two books and multiple peer reviewed scientific papers. He was born in Belgium and currently lives in Augsburg, Germany; he acquired his PhD at the NUS Singapore and MSc at the University of Munich.

David Burridge
NV5 Geospatial

David is the Director of Enterprise Services at NV5 Geospatial. He has worked in the data analytics software business for over 25 years, including over 17 years in image analysis and exploitation and most recently the automation of image analytics in the cloud. He currently leads the team delivering ENVI Insight, which delivers image-derived information at scale using ENVI’s proven analytics hosted in a scalable cloud environment.

Abstract

Breakout Session - Automating SAR Analytics at Scale
As the value provided by SAR data and processing becomes more mainstream, the applications areas looking to benefit are increasing rapidly. The challenge now is to harness data from the ever-increasing number of SAR sensors to address large-scale requirements and provide that value to decisionmakers, many of whom are not SAR experts. In this presentation, we will discuss the challenges and benefits of automating SAR analytics at scale, including three recent case examples taken different domains.

Joe Morrison
Umbra Space

Joe Morrison leads Umbra's Commercial Experience department and is responsible for figuring out how to make ordering satellite imagery from Umbra as easy as booking a hotel room. Before joining Umbra, he spent five years building out a satellite imagery analysis business at Azavea, a custom geospatial software consultancy. He is an active writer and outspoken commentator on the modern business and strategy of remote sensing.