Report on ESA Radar Remote Sensing Course 2008 in Prague

A five-days intensive Radar remote sensing course was held from 27. - 31. October 2008 in the facilities of Department of Applied Geoinformatics and Cartography, Charles University in Prague. The course was jointly organised by the Czech Space Office, European Space Agency and the above mentioned Charles University.

The course was led by two renowned European radar remote sensing experts, Prof. Fabio Rocca from university Politecnico di Milano and Prof. Ramon Hanssen from Delft University of Technology with support of two specialist from ESA, Dr. Francesco Sarti and Dr. Steffen Dransfeld and with final contribution given by Dr. Urs Wegmüller from Swiss company Gamma Remote Sensing.

The course was a first event of such kind on Czech university premises. About 35 university students and young scientists attended the class, out of which 25 were selected from Czech applicants and other 10 came form Hungary, Romania (PECS countries) and Slovakia.

Prof. Fabio Rocca from Politecnico di Milano (left), Anabelle Fonseca (front) and course participants

The programme focused on radar interferometry, since this method is being not well known and routinely used yet in the Czech research area. The everyday programme was split into morning theoretical session and afternoon practical session with real satellite data from ERS and ENVISAT. The students tried out to process them using ERDAS (temporary licence provided by ESA) and by software DORIS, which was developed at the Delft University of Technology and is available for download and using as freeware. The class included practical examples of using InSAR for topographic modelling and vertical land movements detection including examples of real results from Czech environment of undermined area of Ostrava region, presented by Gamma Remote Sensing.

All students were provided by ESA with the InSAR manual, which is also available in electronic issue for free download. At the end, every student received from ESA a certificate of participation at the course.

Anabelle Fonseca (ESA) passes the certificates to students, Dr. Francesco Sarti, the course initiator in ESA (back middle)

Jan Kolář from Czech Space Office (right) hands over a few gifts to Prof. Ramon Hanssen (left), Dr. Francesco Sarti from ESA (back)

A group photo at the steps of Faculty of Science building at Albertov in Prague, Prof. Fabio Rocca (left), Prof. Ramon Hanssen (right) and Dr. Urs Wegmuller (left from RH)

Course materials

ESA InSAR Training Manual - available for free download in four parts (A,B,C, references)

The presentations, exercises, data and video are available for download until end of March 2009 (four ZIP archives - 2,2 GB in total + 2,5 GB video). To watch the video you need to install codeck X264 or more easily and reliably, install and use this freeware KM player.

Software DORIS for download.

 Lecturers

Prof. Fabio Rocca
Professor, Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Prof. Ramon Hanssen
Professor, Department of Earth Observation & Space Systems, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Dr. Francesco Sarti
Scientific Coordinator of the Education and Training Activities, Directorate of Earth Observation Programmes, ESA/ESRIN Frascati, Italy

Dr. Steffen Dransfeld
Education and Training Activities, Directorate of Earth Observation Programmes, ESA/ESRIN Frascati, Italy

Dr. Urs Wegmüller
Director of Gamma Remote Sensing, Gümligen, Switzerland

Organizers
Jan Kolar (Czech Space Office)
Josef Sobra (Czech Space Office)
Marketa Potuckova (Charles University in Prague)
Francesco Sarti (ESA, ESRIN)
Anabelle Fonseca-Colomb (ESA, International Relations)

Contact
Josef Sobra
sobraczechspace.cz
mobile: + 420 733 695 367