Disaster Monitoring Based on Portable Terminal for Real-Time RADARSAT-1 Data Acquisition

Abstract

R&D Center ScanEx (www.scanex.ru) is leading manufacturer of personal ground stations and terminals, i.e. antenna systems for receiving, storing and processing Earth observation images. Their unique features compared to the traditional systems for gathering information about the Earth from space are as follows: affordable price, compactness, a technology on the basis of a standard PC, ease of the operation, a unified technology of data storage, processing, and image thematic analysis. All of these leads to cheaper data, simpler data acquisition technology, and quicker access time for the widest possible range of users. A personal ground station is the unique means to enable users to receive images of the Earth from space directly at their PCs. UniScan™ ground station (in stationary and mobile modifications) by R&D Center ScanEx is flexible solution for receiving information from wide range of Earth observation satellites: Terra/Aqua, IRS-1C,1D,P6, RADARSAT-1, EROS A1 and others. R&D Center ScanEx offers the complete chain for RS data acquisition, storage and processing on the base of its own hardware and software solutions. Affordable price of ground stations makes it possible to install such equipment not only for national remote sensing Centers, but at research, education organizations. The main possibility that gives UniScan™ technology is access to RS data in real-time mode — data is ready to analysis after 15–30 minutes after data reception. This is too important for such RS data applications as disaster management (flooding, fires monitoring).

R&D Center ScanEx in cooperation with Antrix Corp. offers integrated solution for acquisition information from recently launched IRS-P6 satellite by affordable price which includes hardware, software and 1,000 minutes time for data downlink. IRS-P6 data with resolution of 5.8, 23 and 56 m and short revisit period (5, 24 and 5 days correspondingly) make this data valuable for very different RS data applications.