The department of Earth Observation Systems (EOS) wants to position itself as a department of science, covering core science as far as this is relevant for earth observation and data quality in relation to building on capacity. In all ITC's activities the Department wants to be the natural first point of contact for expertise in core remote sensing methodology, mathematical and statistical methods for geodata and earth observation methods, and in mapping of topographical objects. The main focus is therefore on remote sensing for spatial data infrastructure.
The department of Earth Observation Science (EOS) deals with earth observation technology for problem solving. Problem solving means primarily identification of solutions for large-volume producers of geo-information and identification of solutions for application domains. To do so EOS:
- holds the expertise in various earth observation domains
- has a strong and focused scientific research program to expand that knowledge, links this to the problem-orientation in ITC's core application domains and builds and expands a national and international knowledge network.
EOS holds part of the expertise and competence in:
- The physical background of earth observation related to measuring and imagin, treated in a practical manner such that this is of benefit to applied scientists.
- The principles of earth observation techniques relate to all relevant sensors with a bias towards new sensors, which allow prospective new fields of earth observation science to be explored.
- Sensor characteristics and calibration, radiometric and geometric image corrections, data fusion, image acquisition and analysis, classification, and photogrammetric computer vision, object and process modelling.
- Analytical techniques for processing of earth observation data (i.e., spectral analysis, time series, filter theory, sub-pixel and fuzzy classification, image compression, image analysis etc.)
- Modelling and assessing quality of earth observation data.
The research by EOS focuses on two issues of relevance in the domain of earth observation:
- Framework data generation and maintenance: Utilizing technological advances in observation techniques, information extraction, and provision of global datasets in support of a National Spatial Data Infrastructure in ITC's client countries.
- Monitoring, modelling and change detection: Utilizing technological advances in observation techniques requires fundamental earth observation research on the development of methods and techniques for the analysis of remotely sensed time-series directed toward change detection (process-based modelling).