Terminals on the Base of Untscan™ Technology – The
Newest Solution for Monitoring of the Earth From
Space
Main specifications of the UniScan™ station
UniScan™ hardware is universal and programmable. It provides for reception of
information in any format, whose parameters are within the following limits:
The users would not need any hardware modifications to adapt the station for a new satellite
and format, only some additional software will be required provided that:
- format parameters are within the limits indicated above;
- power of the satellite transmission is sufficient to be received by the particular antenna
system.
Sich-1M, Monitor-E No 1, IRS-P5, IRS-P6, RADARSAT-2, SPOT 4 and 5, EROS A,
Envisat-1 satellites and many others transmit (or will transmit) information within the
UniScan™ range of parameters.
UniScan™ is designed in two configurations:
- mesh-reflector antenna, 3.6 m in diameter with a 3-axis rotating support (UniScan™-36);
- solid-reflector antenna, 2.4 m in diameter with a 2-axis "X – Y" rotating support
(UniScan™-24)
The UniScan™ consists of:
- the antenna
system;
- the control
unit;
- computer interface boards;
- an Intel Pentium IV based PC (one or two, see below);
- the software;
- a set of connecting cables.
The ingest interface boards comprise Viterbi decoders and FPGAs for the frame
synchronization and in-line processing (differential decoding, simple formatting, etc.).
Figure 2. Antenna system of UniScan™-36
Figure 3. Antenna system of UniScan™-24
PCs for the UniScan™ station are capable of ingesting, logging and temporary storage of
the relevant large data streams. If a station is intended for parallel data reception via two radio
downlinks (as is the case with the IRS-1C/1D satellites), it is supplied with two PCs connected
into a local network and two PC interfaces.
R&D Center ScanEx offers the complete chain for RS data acquisition, storage and
processing on the base of its own hardware and software solutions. Affordable price of ground
stations makes it possible to install such equipment not only for national remote sensing Centers,
but at research, education organizations.
The system is equipped with specialised software for:
- the control of acquisition and data recording to a PC hard disc (ScanReceiver®);
- the preliminary processing (data formatting, geolocation and calibration). Definite
structure of this software depends on station configuration, i.e. list of data to be acquired;
- the visualisation and analysis of images (ScanMagic®, one license);
- cataloguing images (ScanEx Catalogue Manager®);
- additional thematic image processing (ScanEx Image Processor®, one license).
All software is designed for MS Windows.
Data recording and storage is implemented in formats developed by the R&D Center
ScanEx. They preserve all of the metadata received from a satellite and the metadata added in
the course of reception.
These formats are fully supported by the delivered software. It is also possible to obtain low-level
products in standard formats such as
- MODIS: MOD 01, MOD 02, MOD 03 (Terra); MYD 01, MYD 02, MYD 03 (Aqua);
- IRS (LISS-3, PAN): FAST;
- RADARSAT: RADARSAT Level 0, Level1 in CEOS SAR formats.
R&D Center ScanEx in cooperation with Antrix Corp. offers integrated solution for
acquisition information from recently launched IRS-P6 satellite by affordable price which
includes hardware, software and 1,000 minutes time for data downlink. IRS-P6 data with
resolution of 5.8, 23 and 56 m and short revisit period (5, 24 and 5 days correspondingly) make
this data valuable for very different RS data applications.
