It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you to EUSAR 2014 in Berlin. This year we are celebrating the anniversary of the 10th European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar, which has been held biennially since 1996. Over the years EUSAR, the first dedicated conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar, has evolved to become the leading international event gathering world-class scientists and engineers engaged in the fields of SAR techniques, technology, and applications. The evolution of EUSAR is not only documented by the number of papers and posters presented, but also by the increasing number of participating countries. We are looking forward to welcoming leading experts from multiple disciplines and from more than 30 countries presenting almost 400 papers. It is the open spirit of this conference that provides an excellent forum for exchanging information and for discussions on a wide variety of SAR related topics and latest developments. EUSAR has accompanied the worldwide developments on high resolution imaging radar and has helped to establish an international community of SAR experts.

SAR systems are today an indispensable data source for high resolution 2D and 3D mapping, environmental and disaster monitoring as well as security related applications. After the early experimental systems, current SAR missions are operational and beyond their scientific exploitation. SAR data and products have gained considerable shares in the commercial EO markets. SAR techniques and information extraction have matured in various domains, enabling operational applications and services for programs like the European Copernicus environmental monitoring programme. Early results from the recently launched Sentinel-1 are expected to be one of the highlights of EUSAR 2014. Beyond the various sessions on current and future missions as well as imaging and processing techniques, this year’s technical program features also a number of application oriented sessions in different fields.

The Maritim Hotel is situated in the heart of Berlin close to most famous land marks like the Brandenburger Tor, the Reichstag (home of the German parliament) or the futuristic buildings at Potsdamer Platz. Berlin, built around the River Spree, has undergone dramatic changes in the past years. Mostly destroyed after World War II, many historic sites have been restored or reconstructed and the city has emerged from an unparalleled construction project. The new (old) capital of Germany is once again one of the greatest European cities. Take your time to visit Berlin, enjoy its legendary night life or relax in one of the parks like the Tiergarten right next to the Maritim Hotel.

I am looking forward to meeting you in Berlin during EUSAR 2014.

Welcome Message of the Technical Chairman

On behalf of the program board I would like to welcome you to EUSAR 2014.
The overwhelming response of more than 400 submitted papers from 35 countries demonstrates the popularity and importance of this international conference. To our great satisfaction, all important fields of SAR have been covered, including latest results from SAR missions, new SAR techniques and technologies, advanced SAR processing algorithms, SAR system calibration and validation, novel information retrieval algorithms and innovative applications.

All submitted papers were reviewed by the technical program committee consisting of 120 internationally renowned SAR experts. 250 papers were selected for oral presentation and 125 papers for interactive poster presentation.
The conference starts on Tuesday morning with a plenary session featuring overview presentations by three distinguished keynote speakers: Prof. Jan Wörner, Chairman of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Prof. Volker Liebig, Director of Earth Observation Programmes, European Space Agency (ESA), and Shizuo Yamamoto, Executive Director, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Afterwards, five oral sessions will be held in parallel. By linking topics with rooms we tried to minimize mutual overlaps as far as possible. Special attention should be given to our poster sessions, which are scheduled for Tuesday evening together with our reception.

A commercial exhibition will be hosted during the conference showing the latest industrial developments in SAR systems and applications. Following our tradition, a piano recital will be held at the first evening. Prior to EUSAR 2014 there is also a tutorial day offering five parallel courses.

A Best Paper Award, a Best Poster Award and three Student Best Paper Awards will be awarded at the closing session on the last day of the conference. To ensure a fair and unbiased selection process, an independent Awards Committee has been nominated by Prof. Wiesbeck from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

All presented papers will be included in the EUSAR conference proceedings. To increase their visibility, we have applied for EUSAR to be covered in both the ISI and the SCOPUS citation databases. While we have not yet received final answers to our requests, we are confident to get positive replies in the near future.

In connection to EUSAR 2014 we will also publish a special issue entitled “Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) – New Techniques, Missions and Applications”, which will appear in the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing (JSTARS). All EUSAR attendees are invited to submit a manuscript for peer review according to the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing guidelines. Deadline for manuscript submission is October 31, 2014.

I would like to express my thanks to all contributors and speakers and in particular to the members of the program board for their competent evaluation of the large number of submissions. I would also like to thank the session organizers for their careful preparation of the invited sessions.

I am looking forward to seeing you in Berlin.