SBIR Phase II: High Resolution, Synthetic Satellite Imagery of the Earth

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将是解决为分析目的而对空间一致和时间相关的历史和当前高分辨率卫星图像进行业务综合的强烈商业和科学需求。该技术将有助于科学知识的进步，特别是在地理空间领域，并有助于市场溢出效应。通过大大简化对任何时间和地点的精确图像的访问，这项技术将为公司，研究人员，教育工作者，学生和普通公民提供可视化和探索我们不断变化的星球的宝贵工具，并将有助于增加公众对科学和技术的参与。此外，图像提供的分析能力在科学应用方面具有巨大潜力，从而有助于学术界和工业界之间的伙伴关系，并改善研究和教育的数据集。最后，该技术将在大型商业卫星图像提供商的操作设置中对个人用户有价值，并实现各种新的可视化、分析和数据挖掘应用。该技术的商业应用实例包括虚拟地球、保险和再保险、农业、紧急情况、变化检测。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目将在操作上合成精确的区域到全球、高空间/高时间的地球卫星图像。该技术将利用先进的数据融合算法来组合各种图像来源，同时保留数据源的最佳空间和时间属性。访问、处理和分析各种卫星图像来源的复杂性对其使用造成了重大障碍。区域和全球连续高空间/高时间分辨率图像的合成是一个挑战，因为除了源数据的空间和时间分辨率存在固有差异外，新模型还需要考虑巨大的数据量和高空间分辨率图像的稀疏覆盖。处理这些挑战的现有技术有严重的局限性，这限制了它们在研究领域之外的应用。该技术将通过实现鲁棒、自动化、可扩展、提供准确数据并可用于操作设置的算法来克服这些限制。它们将提供空间上一致和时间上相关的图像，使企业能够通过区域和全球外联，利用更好的数据做出更好的决策。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will be to address a strong commercial and scientific need for operational synthesis of spatially consistent and temporally relevant historical and current high resolution satellite imagery for analytical purposes. The technology will contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge especially in the geospatial arena and to market spillovers. By dramatically simplifying access to accurate imagery for any time and place, this technology will provide companies, researchers, educators, students, and regular citizens with a valuable tool for visualizing and exploring our changing planet and will contribute to increasing public engagement with science and technology. Further, the analytical capabilities offered by the imagery have great potential in scientific applications thus contributing to partnerships between academia and industry and improving datasets for research and education. Finally, this technology will be valuable in operational settings at the large providers of commercial satellite imagery, to individual users, and enable a wide variety of new visualization, analysis, and data mining applications. The examples of commercial applications for the technology are virtual earth, insurance and reinsurance, agriculture, emergency, change detection.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will operationally synthesize accurate regional-to-global, high spatial / high temporal satellite imagery of the Earth. The technology will utilize advanced data fusion algorithms to combine various sources of imagery while preserving the best spatial and temporal attributes of the data sources. The complexity of accessing, processing, and analyzing various sources of satellite imagery creates a significant barrier to its use. Synthesis of regionally and globally continuous high spatial / high temporal resolution imagery is a challenge as in addition to inherent differences in spatial and temporal resolutions of the source data, the new models need to account for enormous data volumes and sparse coverage of high spatial resolution imagery. Existing techniques to handle these challenges have severe limitations which curtail their use outside of the research arena. The technology will overcome these limitations by implementing algorithms that are robust, automated, scalable, deliver accurate data, and are usable in operational settings. They will provide spatially consistent and temporally relevant imagery which will empower businesses with regional and global outreach to make better decisions with better data.