On 2 May Tobias Miethaner, a department head at the Federal Ministry of Transport, visited EOC. Accompanied by experts from the ministry, Mr. Miethaner was informed about ways satellite- and aircraft-based earth observation can contribute to future ground traffic systems.
In several specialist presentations, scientists from the Remote Sensing Technology Institute provided information about SAR-based and optical methods to derive traffic-relevant information from remote sensing data. Current research at EOC confirms the potential of earth observation to generate highly accurate street maps worldwide for autonomous vehicles, to monitor traffic infrastructure from satellites and aircraft, and to reveal the deterioration of air quality caused by road traffic.
In addition, scientists from the German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) described the current status as well as planned further development of the national Copernicus data portal CODE-DE, developed and operated by EOC together with industrial partners on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Transport and coordinated by the DLR Space Administration division in Bonn-Oberkassel.
In this context the importance of providing long-term archiving and easy access to historical data sets was explained. At the German Satellite Data Archive (D-SDA) operated by DFD all national satellite data is safeguarded and made available long-term for research and application projects. CODE-DE also benefits from this facility.
