EUSAR 2012 will offer full-day tutorial courses. The tutorial courses will be held on Monday, 23 April 2012 at the conference site and will include principles and basic theory, overview of applications and sensor systems.

The tutorials are addressed to all EUSAR participants who are interested in these topics, with minor and advanced technical knowledge on the particular field.

If you have already registered for the conference and want to book additionally a tutorial please click here.

Introduction into SAR Interferometry and Tomography
Lecturer:  Prof. Dr. Richard Bamler, DLR
 
SAR interferometry has become a universal tool for many earth observation applications like DEM generation, deformation and subsidence measurements, and assessment of volcanic and tectonic activities.

This tutorial gives an introduction to the classical InSAR technique for DEM generation as well as to more advanced new developments, like PSI and SAR tomography. These new methods enable exciting measurements of building shapes and their deformation or subsidence with accuracies down to 1mm/year. The following topics will be discussed:

- imaging geometries of the different InSAR implementations
- the concept of coherence and phase noise
- baseline decorrelation and critical baseline
- typical InSAR processing sequence
- differential InSAR and PSI
- correlation techniques
- introduction to multibaseline InSAR and tomography (optional)
- phase unwrapping (optional)

The tutorial handouts will contain the entire material. The optional modules will be presented depending on available time.
 
Biography:
Richard Bamler received his Diploma degree in Electrical Engineering, his Doctorate in Engineering, and his "Habilitation" in the field of signal and systems theory in 1980, 1986, and 1988, respectively, from the Technische Universität München, Germany.

He worked at the university from 1981 to 1989 on optical signal processing, holography, wave propagation, and tomography. He joined the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, in 1989, where he is currently the Director of the Remote Sensing Technology Institute.

In early 1994, Richard Bamler was a visiting scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in preparation of the SIC-C/X-SAR missions, and in 1996 he was guest professor at the University of Innsbruck. Since 2003 he has held a full professorship in remote sensing technology at the Technische Universität München as a double appointment with his DLR position. His teaching activities include university lectures and courses on signal processing, estimation theory, and SAR. Since 2010 he has been a member of the executive board of Munich Aerospace, a newly founded research and education project between Munich universities and extramural research institutions, incl. DLR.

Since he joined DLR Richard Bamler, his team, and his institute have been working on SAR and optical remote sensing, image analysis and understanding, stereo reconstruction, computer vision, ocean color, passive and active atmospheric sounding, and laboratory spectrometry. They were and are responsible for the development of the operational processors for SIR-C/X-SAR, SRTM, TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X, ERS-2/GOME, ENVISAT/SCIAMACHY, MetOp/GOME-2, and EnMAP.

Richard Bamler's current research interests are in algorithms for optimum information extraction from remote sensing data with emphasis on SAR. This involves new estimation algorithms, like sparse reconstruction and compressive sensing. He has devised several high-precision algorithms for mono-static and bi-static SAR processing, SAR calibration and product validation, GMTI for traffic monitoring, SAR interferometry, phase unwrapping, persistent scatterer interferometry, and differential SAR tomography.

Richard Bamler is Fellow of the IEEE and the author of more than 200 scientific publications, among them about 50 journal papers, a book on multidimensional linear systems theory, and holds eight patents and patent applications in remote sensing.

Multidimensional SAR imaging
Lecturer: Gianfranco Fornaro, IREA, I
 
Due to the capability to provide direct physical measurements, interferometry is the technique that has most pushed the applications of SAR to a wide range of scientific areas and has provided returns for our society in terms of support to risk monitoring and security. Repeat pass differential interferometry and its evolution to Persistent Scatterers Interferometry (PSI), which allows accurate localization of ground targets and the monitoring of possible displacements to a mm/yr order, has been the breakthrough for the application of SAR in the risk monitoring. The result of this successful story is an increasing number of spaceborne SAR systems with interferometric capabilities which are made available by several space agencies.

Multipass/multiview SAR data are today accessible for most of the Earth by means of acquisitions carried out over repeated orbits. Such data call for the development of new processing techniques that improves the existing technology in terms of accuracy and objectiveness of the measurements: the extension of the interferometric concept to the multidimensional imaging, i.e., 3D and 4D (space-velocity) imaging, is an example along this line.

The tutorial concentrates on the extension of SAR interferometry to 3D imaging, also known as SAR Tomography or 3D SAR focusing, and explains how such advanced SAR imaging is the result of a natural evolution of interferometry and PSI.

The capability of 3D SAR Tomography to generate full-3D images, and hence to provide a profiling of the scattering distribution also along the elevation direction allows detecting and locating different scatterers mechanisms interfering in the same pixel thus solving the layover problem, which is particularly critical in areas, such as urban areas, with the presence vertical structures. The 3D imaging techniques is extended to the velocity domain (4D imaging) to allow following the temporal evolution of ground scatterers. Results on real data, also acquired by the latest generation high resolution sensors (TerraSAR-X and COSMO/SKYMED) where the layover problem is even more an issue, are presented. Aspects related to thermal dilation, which is a further key contribution of X-Band data, are then commented. 

Finally, discussions about the potentialities of multidimensional imaging with SAR systems formation, which will allow acquiring multiview data simultaneously and repeatedly, are also addressed.

Biography:
Gianfranco Fornaro graduated, cum laude, in Electronic Engineering at the University of Napoli in 1992 and received the Ph.D. degree in Telecommunications in 1997.  Since 1993 he has been with the “Istituto per il Rilevamento Elettromagnetico dell’Ambiente (IREA)” of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) where he currently holds the position of Senior Researcher. He has taught courses related to signal communication in several University located in south Italy.

Dr Fornaro has been visiting scientist at the German Aerospace Establishment (DLR), at Politecnico of Milano and invited lecturer at the Istituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica (ITA) in Sao José dos Campos (Brazil), at RESTEC (Tokyo) and at the International radar/SAR Summer School in Bonn (Germany).

His main research interests regard the signal processing filed with applications to airborne and spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data processing, including motion compensation, SAR interferometry, differential SAR Interferometry and tomography. He has been chairman and tutorial lecturer in several conferences sessions of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society and he has authored about sixty papers in ISI journals. Dr. Fornaro in 2005 served as Editor of the “Advances in Interferometric SAR processing” special issue of the EURASIP Journal on Applied Signal Processing (JASP) and was awarded in 1997 of the Mountbatten Premium by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE).

Airborne multi-channel SAR/MTI
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Joachim H.G. Ender, Fraunhofer FHR

The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce multi-channel SAR technique for moving target indication (MTI). To take into account the recent progress the lecture will focus on airborne systems but all methods can easily be transferred to space-based or even ground based SAR/MTI systems.

Classical airborne synthetic aperture radar fails to recognize moving targets in the basic mode. The lecture starts with the analysis of the effect on a SAR image due to target motions. Effective MTI can only be obtained by multi-channel SAR (MSAR) systems or MIMO configurations. The tutorial will address first classical techniques as Along-track interferometry (ATI) or displaced-phase-center antenna (DPCA) techniques which are using two subapertures arranged in flight direction. It is shown that these methods have a relatively good performance for the detection of moving targets, but only poor behaviour concerning the positioning.

By employing a multi-channel SAR with at least three phase centers allows to apply array processing techniques like space-time-adaptive processing (STAP) for ground moving target indication (GMTI) or electronic counter-counter-measures (ECCM) and interferometric SAR (IfSAR). STAP will be explained in the context of moving target indication for a SAR system. A comparison of the Cramèr Rao Lower bound with one- and two-channel sensors shows the superiority of STAP applied to at least three channels.

The presented techniques will be illustrated by examples gathered by experimental systems of Fraunhofer FHR.

 
Biography:
Prof. Joachim Ender is the head of the Fraunhofer-Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR. This institute with more than 240 employees investigates concepts, methods and systems for electromagnetic sensors, particularly in the fields of radar and radiometry, combined with innovative signal processing methods.

Additionally, Prof. Ender holds a chair for High Frequency Sensors and Radar Techniques sensors at the University of Siegen.

He was born in 1950 at Soest, Germany and studied at the University of Münster Mathematics and Physics. After achieving the diploma in 1975 he joined the German Research Society for Applied Sciences in 1976, where he worked on statistical theory of detection and estimation, phased array antennas, imaging radar, radar signal processing problems, and the design and construction of experimental radar systems.

He received the Dr.-degree at the Ruhr-University Bochum in electrical engineering. Since 1992 he was giving annular lectures on radar signal processing at the Ruhr-University, where he received the award “Honorary Professor” in 2002, also gave lectures on radar techniques at the Rhineish-Westphalian Technical-University Aachen and the University of Siegen.

Since 2003 he is the director of FHR. In 2009, the institute became part of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (FhG), which is with a staff of more than 18,000 Europe’s largest application-oriented research organization.

His current interests with respect to his own research are:

Ground moving target detection with air and space based radar, inverse SAR for moving target imaging, bistatic SAR processing, MIMO-SAR and compressive sensing applied to radar.

Joachim Ender is author and co-author of numerous papers and frequently serves as a referee for various international journals and conferences. He was one of the founder members of the “European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar” (EUSAR) and member of the program committee of a couple of radar-related conferences. In 2010 he was the general chairman of EUSAR at Aachen and in 2011 the general chairman of the international conference “Future Security” at Berlin.

In 1991 he got the VDE-ITG award (shared with H. Wilden) for works on the "crow's nest antenna". He was together with colleagues awarded with the “Raytheon Radar Price” EuRAD 2005 for the “best radar paper”, and he was one of the authors of a paper which was awarded the “GRS-S Transactions Prize Paper Award of the year 2006”.

In 2012, he received from EURASIP the “Group Technical Achievement Award - For contributions to Array Signal Processing and Multichannel Synthetic Aperture Radar”.

Space-based SAR/MTI techniques
Lecturers:
Dr. Delphine Cerutti-Maori, Fraunhofer FHR
Dr. Ishuwa Sikaneta, DRDC
 

Image formation algorithms

Lecturer: Prof. Mehrdad Soumekh, Soumekh Consultant & SUNY-Buffalo  
This tutorial provides an analysis of the information base in a bistatic SAR system, and its manipulation for imaging. The role of the coherent bistatic radar amplitude pattern of a target in its bistatic SAR signature is discussed. Three classes of bistatic SAR imaging algorithms for a platform that moves with an arbitrary constant velocity in the three-dimensional spatial domain are examined. One is based on motion compensation of the bistatic SAR data to the scene center, and spatial frequency assignment of the resultant; this is known as bistatic polar format processing (PFP). The second class of imaging methods relies on a slow-time Fourier (Doppler) analysis of the bistatic SAR data via decomposition of propagating waves; this class is referred to as the bistatic wavefront reconstruction. The third imaging algorithm utilizes the two-dimensional correlation processing of the bistatic SAR data in the fast-time and slow-time domains; this is known as the backprojection method. A discussion on the relative merits of these methods is provided.
 
Biography:
Mehrdad Soumekh has served as a consultant on signal and image processing for electronic sensors. In that capacity, he has worked for the Air Force Laboratories at Albuquerque, Eglin, Rome and Wright Patterson, the Army Laboratories at Adelphi and Fort Belvoir, the Navy Laboratory at San Diego, MITRE, Northrop Grumman and Rockwell Collins. He is the author of the books Fourier Array Imaging (Prentice Hall, 1994), and Synthetic Aperture Radar Signal Processing with MATLAB Algorithms (Wiley, 1999). He holds a patent for SAR wavefront (range migration or omega-k) reconstruction algorithm.

Experimental Aspects of Bistatic SAR
Lecturers:  
Dr.-Ing.Ingo Walterscheid, Fraunhofer FHR
Dipl.-Ing. Thomas Espeter, Center for Sensorsystems (ZESS), University of Siegen

 
Abstract: The spatial separation of the transmitter and the receiver in bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) enables a variety of data acquisition geometries to achieve benefits like the increased information content of bistatic SAR data. A growing interest in bistatic SAR can be observed in the last decade, which leads to a number of innovative bistatic SAR experiments with remarkable outcomes.

The main objective of this tutorial is to give a comprehensive, up-to-date overview of bistatic SAR experiments which were conducted in the last decade by institutes from all over the world. After an introduction and a historical overview, different SAR configurations (e. g. airborne transmitter in combination with an airborne receiver; stationary transmitter or receiver which might be operated on a tower combined with a space- or airborne system; airborne receiver utilizing a satellite illuminator, etc.) and the specific challenges of bistatic SAR are discussed. The last decade’s bistatic SAR experiments are then considered in detail. The tutorial concludes with an outlook and discussion. 

List of Contents:
1) Bistatic SAR Experiments – Introduction and Historical Overview
2) Bistatic SAR Configurations
3) Challenges of Bistatic SAR
4) Airborne/Airborne Experiments
5) Experiments Using a Stationary Transmitter or Receiver
6) Spaceborne/Airborne Experiments
7) Other Configurations and Bistatic SAR Systems
8) Outlook and Discussion

Biography of the Lecturers
Ingo Walterscheid received the Diploma degree in electrical engineering and the Dr. Eng. degree from the University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany, in 2002 and 2007, respectively.

Since 2002, he is with the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques (FHR), Wachtberg, Germany.

His main research interests are in the areas of mono- and bistatic synthetic aperture radars (SAR), array-based radar imaging, and radar signal processing. He has planned, conducted and exploited many bistatic SAR experiments with ground-based, airborne and spaceborne SAR sensors.

Ingo Walterscheid is a member of the Information Technology Society (ITG) of the Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (VDE) and a member of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society. He received the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Transactions Prize Paper Award in 2007, and the ITG literature award 2010.

 
Thomas Espeter was born in Dülmen, Germany, in 1976. He received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering from Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany, in 2005. From 2005 to 2011 he was with the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR, Wachtberg, Germany, where his research was focused on bistatic SAR systems and experiments. Since October 2011 he has been with the Center for Sensorsystems (ZESS), University of Siegen and a member of the International Postgraduate Programme “Multi Sensorics”. His current research interests are in the areas of bistatic SAR and SAR interferometry.

Thomas Espeter is a member of the Information Technology Society (ITG) of the German Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (VDE) and a member of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society.

Multistatic SAR
Lecturer:  Dr. Marco Martorella, University of Pisa
 
List of contents
1) Introduction: ISAR and Non-cooperative target radar imaging
2) Why bistatic and multistatic?
3) Geometry: Monostatic, Bistatic, Multistatic
4) Signal modelling
5) Bistatic ISAR: the Bistatically Equivalent Monostatic Configuration
6) B-ISAR with the BEM
7) Non-stationary case: Bistatic angle change effects
8) Synchronisation error effects
9) Multistatic ISAR: multi-bistatic (SIMO) and multistatic (MIMO)
10) Coherent and Incoherent multistatic ISAR
11) Optimal sensor positioning: monostatic and bistatic case
12) Emulated Multistatic ISAR

Abstract: This tutorial will aim at providing basics of bistatic and multistatic ISAR imaging. A brief introduction will discuss ISAR and Non-Cooperative Target Imaging (NCTI) with the aim of introducing basic ISAR concepts and notation. Motivations to use bistatic and multistatic rather than monostatic ISAR systems will be then discussed. Signal modeling for bistatic and multistatic ISAR imaging will be introduced together with the concept of Bistatically Equivalent Monostatic (BEM) configuration.

The BEM processor will be defined and its limitations when applied to bistatic ISAR configurations will be highlighted, also in the presence of dynamically changing bistatic angles and phase synchronization errors.

Multistatic configurations will be then defined and both SIMO and MIMO ISAR will be specifically considered as possible implementations.

Coherent and incoherent multistatic ISAR will also be defined and pros and cons discussed. The problem of optimal sensor positioning in monostatic and bistatic cases will also be addressed and solved. Finally, the Emulated Multistatic ISAR concept will be presented and results based on the use of real data will be shown that demonstrate its validity.

Biography: Marco Martorella was born in Portoferraio (Italy) in June 1973. He received the Telecommunication Engineering Laurea (cum laude) and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pisa (Italy) in 1999 and 2003, respectively. He became a Postdoctoral Researcher in 2003, a Researcher/Lecturer in 2005 and a permanent Senior Researcher/Lecturer in 2008 at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Pisa. He has co-authored about 25 journal papers and 50 conference papers. He has organised Special and Invited sessions at international conferences and workshops and organised a Special Issue on Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar for the Journal of Applied Signal Processing (Hindawi). He is currently lecturing the course “Radar Theory and Technique”at the Masters in Telecommunication Engineering at the University of Pisa and the course “High Resolution and Imaging Radar” at the International Masters in Radar and Electronic Defence at the University of Cape Town. He has also given lectures and seminars in several research institutions in US, Australia, Asia, South America and Europe and presented tutorials on ISAR at IEE/IEEE Radar Conferences. He is a member of 4 NATO SET panels and a member of AFCEA. He received the Australia-Italy award for young researchers in 2008 and IEEE GRSL Best Reviewer in 2010. His research interests are mainly in the field of radar imaging, including passive, multistatic and polarimetric imaging radar.

SAR polarimetry
Lecturer: Dr. Jakob van Zyl, JPL / NASA

 
Abstract: Radar scattering is inherently a vector process.  Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar systems measure the full vector nature of the scattered waves, capturing all the possible information in the scattering process.  This additional information can be used to quantitatively understand the scattering processes that produced the observed return.  While originally demonstrated in the 1980s and 1990s with airborne systems and on two missions on the Space Shuttle in 1994, the launch of modern polarimetric SAR systems such as PALSAR and TerraSAR-X has led to renewed interest in the analysis of polarimetric SAR data.

This tutorial examines the use of polarimetric SAR data in earth observations.  It starts with a basic introduction to polarimetric SAR measurements, including acquisition modes (full and compact polarimetry) and calibration.  It then examines the power of polarimetric SAR data analysis through advanced polarimetric concepts such as polarization signatures, eigenvalue decompositions, alpha angles and entropy.  It builds on these concepts to discuss in detail polarimetric scattering decompositions to learn more about the observed scattering.  Finally, we discuss the measurement of soil moisture for both bare and vegetated surfaces.  All concepts are discussed and illustrated with actual polarimetric SAR data.
 

Biography: Van Zyl joined JPL in 1986 and held positions of increasing responsibility in the synthetic aperture radar program. In addition, he managed the Radar Science and Engineering Section, the Earth Science Flight Missions and Experiments Office, and the Focused Physical Oceanography and Solid Earth Program Office. He was appointed deputy director for the Astronomy and Physics Directorate in 2002, and Director for Astronomy, Physics and Space Technology in 2005. He is currently the Associate Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory responsible for Project Formulation and Strategy.  He has been an adjunct faculty member in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, University of Southern California, where he taught the class "Remote Sensing Systems from Space" from 1997 to 2001. Since 2002, he has been teaching the class "Physics and Techniques of Remote Sensing" at Caltech.  He is the author of two books on remote sensing, one specifically on polarimetric synthetic aperture radar.  In 1997 Dr. van Zyl received the Fred Nathanson Memorial Radar Award for advancement of radar polarimetry, radar interferometry, and synthetic aperture radar from the Aerospace and Electronics Society of the IEEE, and in 2010 he received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society of the IEEE for his contributions to polarimetric SAR remote sensing.

Polarimetric SAR Interferometry
Lecturer: Dr. Konstantinos P. Papathanassiou, DLR

 
Abstract: Polarimetric SAR Interferometry (Pol-InSAR) is new SAR remote sensing discipline with unique and powerful applications related to the vertical structure of natural and man-made volume scatterers. The coherent combination of single- or multi-baseline interferograms acquired at different polarisations provides sensitivity to the vertical distribution of scattering processes and allows their characterisation by using the associated (volume) interferometric coherences. Pol-InSAR is today a well established technique that promises a break-through in solving essential radar remote sensing problems. Indeed, structural parameters of volume scatterers in the biosphere and cryosphere such as vegetation height, structure, biomass, snow depth, and ice layering are today critical inputs for ecological process modeling and enable monitoring and understanding of eco-system change.

The tutorial offers an introduction to the basic concepts and ideas building the theoretical framework of introducing and exploring polarization diversity in interferometric measurements. Physical interpretation, 3d modeling approaches, signal processing techniques and inversion models are introduced and discussed. The application of the introduced concepts is demonstrated and discussed by means of experimental results obtained in the frame of dedicated Pol-InSAR airborne campaigns. Emphasis is given on performance aspects arising from different temporal and geometrical acquisition implementations. The role and choice of spatial and temporal baselines, and system frequency with respect to scattering and terrain characteristics is investigated. Critical system and geometry parameters affecting the performance of Pol-InSAR configurations are established and discussed. Finally, the role and implementation of Pol-InSAR techniques in the frame of actual and future spaceborne SAR missions is reviewed, the potential and limitations arising are discussed.

Biography: Konstantinos Panagiotis Papathanassiou received the Dipl. Ing degree (Honors) in 1994 and the Dr. degree (Honors) in 1999 from the Technical University of Graz, Austria. From 1992 to 1994 he was with the Institute for Digital Image Processing (DIBAG) of Joanneum Research, in Graz, Austria. Between 1995 and 1999 he worked at the Microwaves and Radar Institute (HR) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. From 1999 to 2000 he was an EU post-doctoral fellow with Applied Electromagnetics (AEL) in St. Andrews, Scotland. Since October 2000 he is again with the Microwaves and Radar Institute (HR) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Actually he is a senior scientist leading the Information Retrieval research group at DLR-HR.

His main research interests are in polarimetric and interferometric processing and calibration techniques, polarimetric SAR interferometry, and the quantitative parameter estimation from SAR data, as well as in SAR mission design and SAR mission performance analysis. He has more than 100 publications in international journals, conferences and workshops. He was awarded with the IEEE GRSS IGARSS Symposium Prize Paper Award in 1998, the Best Paper Award of the European SAR Conference (EUSAR) in 2002 and the DLR science award in 2002. In 2011 he was awarded with DLR’s Senior Scientist Award.

SAR image exploitation 
Lecturer: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Uwe Stilla, Technische Universität München

Abstract: New synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors on satellites like TerrsSAR-X allow flexible mapping with a large coverage or a high resolution of about one meter. Leading-edge airborne SAR sensors provide spatial resolutions on the order of a decimetre. In such data, many features of urban objects can be identified, which were beyond the scope of radar remote sensing before. But, SAR images are often really difficult to be interpreted: the presence of speckle as well as of some distortion effects, like shadowing and layover, makes the analysis of this kind of image complex. The impact of high resolution SAR data on the analysis of urban scenes and typical SAR effects are discussed. Examples for the appearance of buildings and other man-made objects are given. The benefit of SAR-simulation is addressed and examples are shown. Finally, typical problems in SAR simulation are discussed.

Biography: Uwe Stilla was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1957. In 1980, he received a diploma (Dipl-Ing) in electrical engineering from Gesamthochschule Paderborn, Germany, and in 1987 he received an additional diploma (Dipl-Ing) in biomedical engineering from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. From 1990 until 2004, he was with the Institute of Optronics and Pattern Recognition (FGAN-FOM), a German research establishment for defence-related studies. In 1993, he received his PhD (doctor of engineering) from the University of Karlsruhe with work in the field of pattern recognition.

Since 2004 Uwe Stilla is Professor at Technische Universität München. Prof. Stilla is head of the Department of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and director of the Institute of Photogrammetry and Cartography (alternating with Prof. Meng). He is vice dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Surveying and dean of Student Affairs of the Bachelor's and Master Program "Geodesy and Geoinformation" and the Master Program "Earth Oriented Space Science and Technology (ESPACE)". He has the chair of the ISPRS working group "Image Sequence Analysis", is principal investigator of the International Graduate School of Science and Engineering (IGSSE), member of the Scientific Board of German Commission of Geodesy (DGK), and member of Commission for Geodesy and Glaciology of the Bavarian Academy of Science and Humanities. His research focuses on image analysis in the field of photogrammetry and remote sensing. He published more than 250 scientific contributions.

Advanced image interpretation 
Lecturer: Dr.-Ing. Karsten Schulz, Fraunhofer IOSB

 
Abstract: Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has become a key remote sensing technique in the last decades because it works under nearly all weather conditions and is independent from natural illumination. These capabilities are excellent for the exploitation of time series. Incoherent and coherent change detection techniques can be applied because of the fact that SAR is a coherent measurement system allowing to detect changes in the order of the fraction of the wavelength (mm scale). One focus of the tutorial is on methods for object based change detection and change categorization. The exciting possibilities to use SAR data for an advances image interpretation are demonstrated and discussed. On the other hand SAR images are difficult to interpret for image analysts because of its imaging geometry, the long wavelength and the coherent imaging principle. A methods for a simple feature extraction useful for an intuitive image interpretation based on physical properties of the data is introduced (CovAmCoh-Analysis) and discussed. Seasonal changes of these features over nearly a year are discussed to get a deeper understanding of the nature of SAR images.

Biography: Karsten Schulz was born 1962 in Holzminden, Germany. In 1991 he received a diploma degree (Dipl.-Phys.) in extraterrestrial physics and astrophysics at the Ruhr-University of Bochum, where he investigated the light scattering of cometary and interplanetary particles with microwave analogue experiments. At the Institute of Thermo- and Fluid-Dynamics of the faculty of mechanical engineering of the Ruhr-University Bochum, he investigated optical measurement techniques for the determination of local heat and mass transfer coefficients and received a doctorial degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1997. Since fall 1997 he was associated with the Institute of Optronics and Pattern Recognition (FOM) of FGAN in Ettlingen, the German research establishment for defence-related research.

As group leader for SAR image exploitation he was responsible for several projects comprising studies of imaging radar for military surveillance and target detection with a focus on exploitation of interferometric SAR data (INSAR and GMTI). Since March 2009 he is the head of the department Scene Analysis of the Fraunhofer FOM, which is meanwhile the Fraunhofer IOSB - the Institute of Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation.

Professional SAR Data Processing
Lecturer: Dr. Thomas Bahr, EXELIS Visual Information Solutions

Abstract: The use of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data has become increasingly popular in recent years, offering professionals in a wide array of industries a measurable, analytical approach to getting information about an area or object of interest. State-of-the-art methodology, applied to data acquired from recent SAR sensors, generate accurate and detailed products.

This tutorial gives an overview on the professional generation of SAR products from airborne and spaceborne SAR data. The following topics will be discussed:

- SAR basics, applications and the efficient generation of SAR data products
- Processing of SAR amplitude imagery from data import to classifications
- Generation of elevation models with Interferometry (InSAR)

- Displacement mapping with Diffential Interferometry (DInSAR )

- Deduction of mm scale deformation velocities with Persistent Scatterers (PS)

- Monitoring of small deformations with Small Baseline Subset (SPAS) techniques

Biography: Thomas Bahr received the Diploma degree in 1992 and the Dr.rer.nat. degree in 1997 at the University of Munich (Germany) in Geology. From 1992 to 2000 he was involved in various international remote sensing projects on change detection of glacier and other surfaces caused by volcanic activity in Iceland using remotely-sensed SAR and optical data. in 2001 he achieved a supplementary degree in application development for GIS systems at Siemens. Since 2001 he is member of the EXELIS VIS GmbH consulting & service group as a senior consultant. Based on his research background his main focus is on product training and prototyping for user-specific applications.