ASAR imaging for coastal upwelling in the Baltic Sea

Analysis of Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) and Aqua/Terra Moderate Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) infrared (IR) imagery of coastal upwelling in the southeastern Baltic Sea is presented. It is found that upwelling features are well distinct in the SAR images, and the leading imaging mechanism appears to be the change of the marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) stratification over the sea surface temperature (SST) front. This finding is supported by model calculations of the MABL transformation supplemented with the SAR backscatter calculations based on the CMOD4 model. In addition an empirical dependence of the SAR contrasts over the upwelling region on the wind speed and the SST drop is suggested. Finally, surface slicks accumulated in the sea surface current convergence zones generate additional distinct features in SAR imagery. This effect is interpreted within the framework of the coastal current circulation model based on analysis of the SST snapshot.     

TanDEM-X: A radar interferometer with two formation-flying satellites

TanDEM-X (TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurements) is an innovative formation-flying radar mission that opens a new era in spaceborne radar remote sensing. The primary objective is the acquisition of a global digital elevation model (DEM) with unprecedented accuracy (12 m horizontal resolution and 2 m relative height accuracy). This goal is achieved by extending the TerraSAR-X synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mission by a second, TerraSAR-X like satellite (TDX) flying in close formation with TerraSAR-X (TSX). Both satellites form together a large single-pass SAR interferometer with the opportunity for flexible baseline selection. This enables the acquisition of highly accurate cross-track interferograms without the inherent accuracy limitations imposed by repeat-pass interferometry due to temporal decorrelation and atmospheric disturbances. Besides the primary goal of the mission, several secondary mission objectives based on along-track interferometry as well as new bistatic and multistatic SAR techniques have been defined, representing an important and innovative asset of the TanDEM-X mission. TanDEM-X is implemented in the framework of a public–private partnership between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and EADS Astrium GmbH. The TanDEM-X satellite was successfully launched in June 2010 and the mission started its operational data acquisition in December 2010. This paper provides an overview of the TanDEM-X mission and summarizes its actual status and performance. Furthermore, results from several scientific radar experiments are presented that show the great potential of future formation-flying interferometric SAR missions to serve novel remote sensing applications.     

基于SAR景象不变特征点的匹配定位技术研究

针对精确制导领域中的SAR景象匹配定位技术中由于实时图与基准图可能存在形变、分辨率不一致,图像旋转及雷达视角变化及噪声的影响下差异较大情况时直接利用基于灰度的规则正交二维信息匹配算法适应性差的问题,将不变特征点匹配方法(Scale Invariant Feature Transform,SIFT)应用到SAR景象匹配中,通过仿真实验取得了满意的效果,试验结果表明SIFT特征是图像的局部特征,其对旋转、尺度缩放、亮度变化保持不变性,对视角变化、噪声也保持一定程度的稳定性,对提高匹配概率和对不同图像的适应性,降低应用风险具有借鉴意义。     

Configuration synthesis of planar folded and common overconstrained spatial rectangular pyramid deployable truss units

Compared with non-overconstrained deployable units, overconstrained deployable units are widely used in space missions for their higher stiffness characteristics. Besides the performance of a three-step topological structural analysis and design of the rectangular pyramid deployable truss unit(PDTU), conducting a structural synthesis of an overconstrained deployable unit requires the determination of the relative position and direction of each kinematic axis. The structural synthesis of an overconstrained deployable unit is investigated based on screw theory and its topological structure. The possible overconstrained cases of the rectangular PDTUs are analyzed, and corresponding screw expressions are obtained. Thus, the rectangular PDTUs, which can be folded into a plane, are synthesized systemically, and a series of overconstrained rectangular PDTUs is obtained. Furthermore, the feasibility of the folded and deployed motions under one degree of freedom for those deployable units is verified in dynamical simulation by using ADAMS 2010.     

Distributed coordinated control scheme of UAV swarm based on heterogeneous roles

This paper proposes a new distributed coordinated control scheme based on heterogeneous roles for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV) swarm to achieve formation control. First, the framework of the distributed coordinated control scheme is designed on the basis of Distributed Model Predictive Control(DMPC). Then, the effect of heterogeneous roles including leader, coordinator and follower is discussed, and the role-based cost functions are developed to improve the performance of coordinated control for...     

Vector quantization for saturated SAR raw data compression

Spaceborne SAR involves the storage and transmission of large-size sampling data. Block adaptive quantization (BAQ) is now the most widely used onboard data compression algorithm due to its good tradeoff between system performance and complexity. However, when spaceborne SAR raw data is saturated, the performance of conventional BAQ deteriorates dramatically because its precondition of Gaussian distribution of raw data no longer holds. In order to solve this problem, an improved vector quantization (VQ) algorithm is proposed. This algorithm firstly introduces saturation modification to a conventional vector quantizer, obtains the saturation codebook based on Gaussian density function, and then obtains the new vector quantizer for the whole set of Saturation Degree (SD). This algorithm makes the vector quantizer match statistical model of data for the whole set of SD, so the performance of the compression is improved. The case of the 2D signal is explicitly computed. The performance of the proposed algorithm is verified by simulated and real data experiments.     

Pattern control for large-scale spacecraft swarms in elliptic orbits via density fields

Space swarms, enabled by the miniaturization of spacecraft, have the potential capability to lower costs, increase efficiencies, and broaden the horizons of space missions. The formation control problem of large-scale spacecraft swarms flying around an elliptic orbit is considered. The objective is to drive the entire formation to produce a specified spatial pattern. The relative motion between agents becomes complicated as the number of agents increases. Hence, a density-based method is adopted...     

分布式卫星系统(DSS)及其自主控制技术分析

DSS系统本身的复杂性以及工作环境的不确定性 ,导致利用传统的控制方法对其进行控制十分困难。本文对DSS及其自主控制技术进行了分析。首先介绍了DSS的概念、结构及其支撑技术 ;其次阐述了卫星自主运行的研究进展 ,解析了空间飞行器RemoteAgent智能自主控制系统的基本构成 ;然后介绍了DSS自主运行技术的研究现状 ;接下来重点分析了基于multi -agent的DSS自主控制涉及的关键技术及面临的挑战 ;最后进行了总结     

SAR成像及干扰效果评估方法研究

合成孔径雷达(SAR)是一种高分辨率成像雷达,在工作机理上不同于传统雷达,对其实施干扰及效果评估具有其特殊性。本文简单分析了SAR成像的原理和特点,讨论了几种适用的干扰技术,并基于图像质量评估指标体系对其干扰效果进行了仿真分析。     

基于阴影信息的多视角SAR图像识别

传统的SAR图像识别技术主要基于目标的电磁散射特性,而目标阴影信息对SAR图像目标识别具有重要的作用。若能获取同一目标在多个方位角下的多幅SAR图像,可改善目标识别的性能。针对该问题,本文提出了一种基于隐马尔可夫模型及阴影信息的多视角SAR图像识别技术。该技术提取目标阴影形状的链编码作为特征向量,并结合同一目标在不同方位角下的多幅图像的特征向量,生成该目标的特征序列,然后利用HMM对特征序列进行识别。仿真结果表明,该方法可有效实现SAR图像目标识别。