Permanent Scatterers for landslide investigations: outcomes from the ESA-SLAM project

Within the SLAM project (Service for Landslide Monitoring), launched in 2003 by the European Space Agency (ESA) the Permanent Scatterers (PS) technique, a multi-image interferometric approach, coupled with the interpretation of aerial-photos and optical satellite images, was carried out for landslide investigations. The PS analysis was applied at a regional scale as support for landslide inventory mapping and at local scale for the monitoring of single well-known slope movements. For the integration of the PS measurements within a landslide inventory the Arno river basin (Italy) was chosen as test site for the presence of a high number of mass movements (to date about 300 areas at high landslide risk and more than 27,000 individual landslides mapped by the institutional authorities). About 350 SAR images have been interferometrically processed by means of the PS technique, with the detection of about 600,000 PS. The use of optical images contributed spatial meaning to the point-wise information provided by the PS, making it easier to identify terrain features related to slope instability and the landslide boundaries. Here we describe the employed methodology and its impact in the updating of a preexisting landslide inventory. 6.8% of the total number of landslides were characterized by ground displacement measurements from the PS: 6.1% of already mapped landslides and 0.8% of new unstable areas detected through the PS analysis. Moreover, most of the PS are located in urban areas, showing that the proposed methodology is suitable for landslide mapping in areas with a quite high density of urbanization, but that over vegetated areas it still suffers from the limitations induced by the current space-borne SAR missions (e.g. temporal de-correlation). On the other hand, the use of InSAR for the monitoring of single slow landslides threatening built-up areas has provided satisfactory results, allowing the measurement of superficial deformations with high accuracy on the landslide sectors characterized by a good radar reflectivity and coherence.     

Spherical Slepian functions and the polar gap in geodesy

The estimation of potential fields such as the gravitational or magnetic potential at the surface of a spherical planet from noisy observations taken at an altitude over an incomplete portion of the globe is a classic example of an ill-posed inverse problem. We show that this potential-field estimation problem has deep-seated connections to Slepian's spatiospectral localization problem which seeks bandlimited spherical functions whose energy is optimally concentrated in some closed portion of the unit sphere. This allows us to formulate an alternative solution to the traditional damped least-squares spherical harmonic approach in geodesy, whereby the source field is now expanded in a truncated Slepian function basis set. We discuss the relative performance of both methods with regard to standard statistical measures such as bias, variance and mean squared error, and pay special attention to the algorithmic efficiency of computing the Slepian functions on the region complementary to the axisymmetric polar gap characteristic of satellite surveys. The ease, speed, and accuracy of our method make the use of spherical Slepian functions in earth and planetary geodesy practical.     

SPOT5影像严格几何纠正方法研究

根据SPOT卫星的成像原理和特点,讨论了对SPOT5卫星影像按共线方程法进行有控制点的几何纠正的方法,经对关中、陕北和陕南三种地形的影像纠正结果进行对比检验,证明了该方法精度达到了较高水平。     

关于卫星应用专业设置及其定位的若干思考

介绍了国内外卫星应用的现状、社会需求及相关专业的设置情况,提出了对我校设置卫星应用专业及其定位的若干建议,说明了设置该专业的必要性、存在的困难及其对策。     

中国深空测控网建立方案的研究

概述了深空测控网的基本技术要求,总结了我国卫星测控网和国内现有射电观测设施的技术、组成和分布,分析和论述了将我国现有的测控设施建设成深空测控网的具体方案。     

Practical Research of IKONOS-2 Geopositioning and Its Accuracy in Tibet of China

This paper presents the studies of the refining of IKONOS-2 RPC, the transform of the datum, the mode of the control point distribution and the method of IKONOS stereo triangulation, so that IKONOS imagery can be used to collect the precise geospatial data and produce the large scale map. The transform between the IKONOS-2 image space and the national coordinate system based on the RPC have been developed, and the results of block adjustment with various control schemes in a practical project near Himalayas have been examined and analysed. The encouraging results of high positioning accuracy have been obtained.     

"嫦娥"卫星绕月飞行轨道的激光测定法

依据地月激光测距的成功实践和对卫星激光定轨的基础研究,提出了用地面对嫦娥卫星作激光测距的方法,高精度地测定嫦娥卫星绕月飞行时的实时在轨位置,论述了多站激光定轨和单站激光定轨的解算数模。     

Outlier detection algorithms and their performance in GOCE gravity field processing

The satellite missions CHAMP, GRACE, and GOCE mark the beginning of a new era in gravity field determination and modeling. They provide unique models of the global stationary gravity field and its variation in time. Due to inevitable measurement errors, sophisticated pre-processing steps have to be applied before further use of the satellite measurements. In the framework of the GOCE mission, this includes outlier detection, absolute calibration and validation of the SGG (satellite gravity gradiometry) measurements, and removal of temporal effects. In general, outliers are defined as observations that appear to be inconsistent with the remainder of the data set. One goal is to evaluate the effect of additive, innovative and bulk outliers on the estimates of the spherical harmonic coefficients. It can be shown that even a small number of undetected outliers (<0.2 of all data points) can have an adverse effect on the coefficient estimates. Consequently, concepts for the identification and removal of outliers have to be developed. Novel outlier detection algorithms are derived and statistical methods are presented that may be used for this purpose. The methods aim at high outlier identification rates as well as small failure rates. A combined algorithm, based on wavelets and a statistical method, shows best performance with an identification rate of about 99%. To further reduce the influence of undetected outliers, an outlier detection algorithm is implemented inside the gravity field solver (the Quick-Look Gravity Field Analysis tool was used). This results in spherical harmonic coefficient estimates that are of similar quality to those obtained without outliers in the input data.     

Quality Assessment Of Digital Surface Models Generated From IKONOS Imagery

The growing applications of digital surface models (DSMs) for object detection, segmentation and representation of terrestrial landscapes have provided impetus for further automation of 3D spatial information extraction processes. While new technologies such as lidar are available for almost instant DSM generation, the use of stereoscopic high-resolution satellite imagery (HRSI), coupled with image matching, affords cost-effective measurement of surface topography over large coverage areas. This investigation explores the potential of IKONOS Geo stereo imagery for producing DSMs using an alternative sensor orientation model, namely bias-corrected rational polynomial coefficients (RPCs), and a hybrid image-matching algorithm. To serve both as a reference surface and a basis for comparison, a lidar DSM was employed in the Hobart testfield, a region of differing terrain types and slope. In order to take topographic variation within the modelled surface into account, the lidar strip was divided into separate sub-areas representing differing land cover types. It is shown that over topographically diverse areas, heighting accuracy to better than 3 pixels can be readily achieved. Results improve markedly in feature-rich open and relatively flat terrain, with sub-pixel accuracy being achieved at check points surveyed using the global positioning system (GPS). This assessment demonstrates that the outlook for DSM generation from HRSI is very promising.