General
GeoRas has more than 18 years continuous project experience with all aspects of remote sensing, photogrammetry and GIS. This includes experience with all commercially available satellite imagery like Landsat, SPOT, IRS, Ikonos, Quickbird, ERS and Radarsat.
The MARS agricultural control program, launched by the EU in collaboration with the national Ministries of Agriculture, is probably largest and most operational application of remote sensing in combination with photogrammetry and GIS. Each year we have a seamless ortho-photo production of digital aerial photography from several airborne sensors in combination with different satellite images.
All aspects of the EU control like software methodological development, GIS setup, digitization, analysis, fieldwork and reporting has been handled entirely by GeoRas teams.
This project is the most demanding Remote Sensing and GIS project due to severe time constraints, large data volumes, very high demands on accuracy and quality control.
GeoRas and Space
A teledetection based identification of fraudulent, or irregular European Union agricultural subsidy claims, has been carried out in most E.U. countries since 1993. The identification process is carried out simultaneously in multiple zones. In each zone several tens of thousands of cultivated plots are processed using anywhere between 4 and 18 multi-temporal satellite images. GeoRas has developed a dedicated system for such parcel based control operations (FACTS), this method has been used for 14 consecutive years in the Netherlands (1995-2008).
A variety of challenges must be met in agricultural control projects:
- large volume of digital aerial photography and Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite images with better than 1m meter resolution and multi-temporal image processing with high geometric accuracy, including ortho-rectification
- demanding time constraints making it difficult for field inspection to be carried out before the crop stubble is off the land
- correct identification of declared plots
FACTS is a truly computerized fact finding solution, designed in coping efficiently with the requirements of GIS/Remote Sensing based fraud and irregularity identification and diagnosis. The challenges are met through its following capabilities:
- handling excessive volumes of raster data, satellite and aerial photographs
- high performance automation of repetitive tasks for the input of tens of thousands of parcels
- the implementation of a unique automated decision model based on multiple-probability image classification
- a high degree of integration between different data types and software functionality
- a modular design of the functionality, that may be extended and production tuned as required
- special emphasis on rigorous quality control and management of the project processes.
