For the past months we have develop an antenna satellite controller using LabView as our programming language. Basically what the controller does, it moves the antenna using manual or automatic control. The hardest part in the design of the controller was to understand how to convert from different coordinates system. A general algorithm was developed in order to make this process. The front panel of the controller is shown below.
    What we are working now is to synchronize the controller with one of our satellite antennas to receive data from RadarSat or LandSat satellites. If data is going to be receive a database will be use to store the data. In the next months we are going to move the existing code that we did in LabView to Java in order to make accessible the controller via the Internet. The same process is going to be use for the new software. Some minor changes will be made because of compatibility of Java with the equipment to be use.

    The purpose of this project was to design and implement a database system for all the image datasets acquired and processed in the Space Information Laboratory (SIL) in order to present the data in an organized manner so that anyone interested can see the metadata associated with a scene image, and a preview of the satellite image products available at SIL.  It also facilitates the request process of satellite imagery that can be obtained through SIL for educational research, or bought for commercial purposes.  A graphical user interface is provided for querying and browsing the database through the Internet.

Why computer Simulation?
  • *Create Virtual Representations of the objects (i.e.. Earth).
  • *Create Layers of information (land, hydraulics, water land, boundaries, roads, etc).
  • *Provide useful information in cases of fire, floods, or any other disaster.
  • *Observe climatologic changes.
  • *Observe atmospherics changes.
Computer Simulation:
Space Information Laboratory (SIL)
  • *Customize information obtained from images to meet specific needs.
  • *Allow the station’s captured data more accessible to the user.
  • *Broader the interest in the station among the non-scientific community.
  • *Support and integrate with others of the multidisciplinary projects under The Tropical Center for Earth and Space Studies (TCESS).

    In the Space Information Laboratory, a component of the Tropical Center for Earth and Space Studies at the UPR – Mayagüez Campus, we acquire image data from the following satellites:  Landsat 7, Radarsat, and Terra, among others.  The image data is processed with several software applications, such as the ENVI toolbox. Image processing techniques provides several features of the earth surface, for example, the temperature behavior of our atmosphere, image enhancement, vegetation index, spectral analysis, mosaicking, etc. Also, ENVI provides several filtering techniques that will be applied to the images of interest and results will be compared.  Another analysis tool that ENVI has is the 3-D modeling of the image surface, providing a feature to measure the surface depth.  This project consists of applying image processing techniques to the image data received at the Space Information Laboratory and the generation of the gap area in the Landsat 7 Level 0 image to process only the real acquired data.

VIEW OUR RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS AND DOCUMENTS