ATI's Remote Sensing for Earth Science Applications course

Summary: This course is for those who need to understand the basics of remote sensing including the instrument capabilities and limitations, and how the data can be processed and used. The course covers the basic concepts of passive and active sensing. The pros and cons of various orbits and the launch techniques to attain them are explained. Typical sensor designs, operational features, and constraints are discussed for low-cost, low-weight LANDSAT-type sensors. The all-important issue of sensor data processing is highlighted, including unique characteristics of each sensor. This course is presented by top experts in satellite remote sensing systems, with many years of hands-on experience. It is recommended for management and technical people who wish to enhance their understanding of engineering concepts and applications of remote sensing systems. The course bridges the knowledge needed to understand both the sensors and the data processing for earth remote sensing and sciences. All attendees will receive a complete set of course notes. Instructors: Dr. Scott Madry is president of Informatics International, Inc., an international consulting firm in Chapel Hill, NC. Dr. Madry has been involved in remote sensing and GIS applications for over 20 years and has conducted a variety of research and application projects in Europe, Africa, and North America. He is a Research Assoc. Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Marvin Maxwell has over 20 years in spacecraft systems and instrument development while at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He was directly involved in supporting the development of the AVHRR, Multispectral Scanner, Thematic Mapper, and the GOES I-M Imager and Sounder. He provided the instrument expertise which developed the MODIS requirements. Dr. Barton D. Huxtable, has over ten years experience in concept development and performance prediction for remote sensor systems including radars, passive millimeter wave imagers, sonars, and lidars. His career has emphasized signal processing and numerical algorithm design and implementation for application-specific data processing and analysis, concentrating on remote sensor processing systems. Dr. Calvin Swift is a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research career has focused on the development of novel instrumentation with applications to passive and active remote sensing of terrain, ocean, sea and glacial ice, and the atmosphere. He has authored numerous book chapters, journal articles, and conference papers in the area of remote sensing. Dr. Richard Gomez is a Professor at George Mason University, and a Principal Research Scientist at the Center for Earth Observing and Space Research. 5 Top Instructors in One Week! Course Outline: Scope of Applications. Overview of remote sensing systems and applications. What systems are and will be in orbit. Cost constraints for operational systems and scientific programs. Orbits:LEO vs GEO sunsynchronous, equational, inclined, elliptical, repeating ground track, non-diurnal/non-monthly/non-seasonal. Current Programs and New Trends. TIROS, GOES, DMSP, EOS, LANDSAT, TOPEX, SSTI, New Millenium, MSTI, SSPT, ERS, RADARSAT, and other Canadian, European, and Japanese programs. Small-Sats, sensors, launch vehicle options, new design trends for miniaturization, techniques for shorter program development. Sensing Fundamentals and Techniques. Radiation, blackbody and electromagnetic, spectral regions. Detection techniques: imagery, radiation measurement, thermal detection, photon detection, and coherent techniques. Radiation detectors: photo-conducting and photo-emissive detectors, thermal detectors, thermopiles, bolometers, pyroelectric detectors, charge transfer devices. Passive systems: microwave, IR, UV, X- and gamma rays, particles. Active systems: lidar, radar, synthetic aperture, altimeters, scatterometers. System issues: cooling, multi-spectral sensing, detection statistics, and data fusion. Fundamentals of SAR. The principles of SAR are presented and system design tradeoffs are illustrated for various mission requirements. Examples and case studies are used. Contemporary technology capabilities are discussed for NASA, DOD and commercial applications. Microwave Radiometry. Thermal emission and emissivity. Brightness temperature and antenna temperature. Radiative transfer. Conventional types of receivers, sensitivity, and calibration. The synthetic aperature radiometer. Passive Microwave Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere. Integrated cloud liquid and water vapor measurements. Remote sensing of precipitation. Temperature and water vapor profiling. Passive Microwave Remote Sensing of Earth Surface. Sea-surface wind speed, temperature, and salinity. Sea ice concentration and age. Glacial inclusions. Soil-moisture measurements and limb sounding. Multispectral & Hyperspectral Imaging. The limitations on passive optical remote sensing. The properties of current sensors. Component modeling for sensor performance. How to calibrate remote sensors. The types of data processing used for applications such as terrain material mapping, multisensor fusion, and pixel mixture analysis. How to evaluate the performance of data processing algorithms. Tuition: Tuition for this 5-day course is $1,695 per person at one of our scheduled public courses. Onsite pricing is available. Please call us at 410-956-8805 or send an email to ati@ATIcourses.com. Register Now Without Obligation