General Lectures

General Lecture 1

(9:00 am - 9:50 am, September 24, 2010):

Dr. Masanobu Shimada (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)

Environmental Monitoring Using the High-resolution L-band Synthetic Aperture Radars - Achievement from the JERS-1 SAR, Pi-SAR, to ALOS/PALSAR

Masanobu Shimada

Associate Principal Researcher
Earth Observation Research Center
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Sengen 2-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8505, Japan

Japan built a unique history of L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for development and utilization. In the early 1990s, there were several issues before full utilization of JERS-1 SAR (1992), i.e., the SAR imaging, calibration, saturation, radio frequency interference (RFI), radiometry, and geometry. After their investigation and SAR learning, airborne SAR (Pi-SAR: 1996) provided the high-resolution and full polarimetric performance with the motion compensation technique. The ALOS/PALSAR (2006) provided the high resolution, polarizations, wide imaging swath, and higher stabilities. Owing to the L-band's higher signal penetration to the vegetation covered earth surface than the higher frequency, the geophysical parameters, i.e., deformation maintained by the interferometric coherence and forest information sensitive to the surface measure are obtained. Currently, there are steams to utilize the L-band SAR for environmental monitoring of the forest and biomass decrease, surface deformation, and the cryospheric research on the ice cover change. Here, the summary of the earth monitoring using the Japanese L-band SAR is presented.

Masanobu Shimada received his BS and MS degrees in aeronautical engineering from Kyoto University in 1977 and 1979, respectively, and his PhD degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1999. He joined the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), currently the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in 1979. During his first time in Tsukuba, he designed a NASDA scatterometer. From 1985 to 1995, he developed data-processing subsystems for optical and SAR data (i.e., MOS-1, SPOT, and JERS-1) at the Earth Observation Center. He was a visiting scientist in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1990. Since 1995, he has been assigned duties at the Earth Observation Research Center (EORC), where he serves as the ALOS Science Manager responsible for ALOS CAL/VAL, rainforest mapping projects, and SAR interferometry projects. He is also an Associate Principal Researcher at JAXA.

General Lecture 2

(9:00 am - 9:50 am, September 25, 2010):

Prof. Akira Ishimaru (University of Washington)

Integrating Wave Propagation and Array Processing for Imaging and Communication in Complex Environments

Akira Ishimaru

Professor Emeritus
Department of Electrical Engineering
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington 98195, USA

There are increasing needs for imaging with high resolution and effective communication through complex multiple scattering media such as biological media, geophysical media. terrain, atmospheric and ocean turbulence and near rough interfaces. Even though these problems require detailed studies on both wave propagation through scattering media and signal processing at inputs and outputs, these two areas are often studied separately. In this talk, we present our recent studies attempting to integrate these two areas. This involves including wave propagation and stochastic Green's functions into several array processing imaging techniques such as TR (Time Reversal), TR-MUSIC (multiple signal classification), CAPON minimum variance, Beamformer, OCT (optical coherence tomography) and SAR imaging, and MIMO communication channel capacity. Some of these involve eigenvalues of time reversal matrices with stochastic elements and MCF (mutual coherence functions). We present several applications in bio-imaging, geophysical imaging, and communication in complex geophysical media.

Akira Ishimaru received B.S. from University of Tokyo and Ph.D. from University of Washington. He is the author of "Wave Propagation and Scattering in Random Media" and "Electromagnetic Wave Propagation, Radiation and Scattering". He was Editor of "Radio Science" and Founding Editor of "Waves in Random and Complex Media". Dr. Ishimaru served as Chairman of Commission B of USNC/URSI. He is Fellow of IEEE, OSA, ASA, and IOP. He received Boeing-Martin Professorship, IEEE Centennial Medal, Third Millennium Medal, IEEE Distinguished Achievement Awards from AP-S and GRS Societies, IEEE Heinrich Hertz Medal and URSI Dellinger Gold Medal. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

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