Near-space is defined as the atmospheric region from about 20 kilometer (km) altitude to 100 km altitude above the Earth’s surface. It has received much attention in recent years and several types of near-space vehicles are currently being studied, developed, or employed. “Near-Space Remote Sensing: Potential and Challenges” concentrates mainly on the role of near-space vehicles in bridging the gap between satellites and airplanes for microwave remote sensing applications, providing a top-level system description and aiming to encourage further research. Further, this book also describes several potential applications such as passive surveillance, reconnaissance, and high resolution wide swath remote imaging. The book is intended for geographers, transportation engineers and other researchers involved in remote sensing development and applications, in particular for near-space vehicles. Wen-Qin Wang is an assistant professor at the School of Communication and Information Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

Natural and human-induced changes in Earth's interior, land surface, biosphere, atmosphere, and oceans affect all aspects of life. Understanding these changes requires a range of observations acquired from land-, sea-, air-, and space-based platforms. To assist NASA, NOAA, and USGS in developing these tools, the NRC was asked to carry out a "decadal strategy" survey of Earth science and applications from space that would develop the key scientific questions on which to focus Earth and environmental observations in the period 2005-2015 and beyond, and present a prioritized list of space programs, missions, and supporting activities to address these questions. This report presents a vision for the Earth science program; an analysis of the existing Earth Observing System and recommendations to help restore its capabilities; an assessment of and recommendations for new observations and missions for the next decade; an examination of and recommendations for effective application of those observations; and an analysis of how best to sustain that observation and applications system.

Communications, Signal Processing, and Systems is a collection of contributions coming out of the International Conference on Communications, Signal Processing, and Systems (CSPS) held August 2012. This book provides the state-of-art developments of Communications, Signal Processing, and Systems, and their interactions in multidisciplinary fields, such as audio and acoustic signal processing. The book also examines Radar Systems, Chaos Systems, Visual Signal Processing and Communications and VLSI Systems and Applications. Written by experts and students in the fields of Communications, Signal Processing, and Systems.

An introduction to the physical principles underlying Earth remote sensing. The development of spaceborne remote sensing technology has led to a new understanding of the complexity of our planet by allowing us to observe Earth and its environments on spatial and temporal scales that are unavailable to terrestrial sensors. Remote Sensing Physics: An Introduction to Observing Earth from Space is a graduate-level text that examines the underlying physical principles and techniques used to make remote measurements, along with the algorithms used to extract geophysical information from those measurements. Volume highlights include: Basis for Earth remote sensing including ocean, land, and atmosphere Description of satellite orbits relevant for Earth observations Physics of passive sensing, including infrared, optical and microwave imagers Physics of active sensing, including radars and lidars Overview of current and future Earth observation missions Compendium of resources including an extensive bibliography Sample problem sets and answers available to instructors The American Geophysical Union promotes discovery in Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity. Its publications disseminate scientific knowledge and provide resources for researchers, students, and professionals.

'Extreme' events - including climatic events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, drought - can cause massive disruption to society, including large death tolls and property damage in the billions of dollars. Events in recent years have shown the importance of being prepared and that countries need to work together to help alleviate the resulting pain and suffering. This volume presents an integrated review of the broad research field of large-scale disasters. It establishes a common framework for predicting, controlling and managing both manmade and natural disasters. There is a particular focus on events caused by weather and climate change. Other topics include air pollution, tsunamis, disaster modeling, the use of remote sensing and the logistics of disaster management. It will appeal to scientists, engineers, first responders and health-care professionals, in addition to graduate students and researchers who have an interest in the prediction, prevention or mitigation of large-scale disasters.

An authoritative work on Synthetic Aperture Radar system engineering, with key focus on high resolution imaging, moving target indication, and system engineering technology Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a powerful microwave remote sensing technique that is used to create high resolution two or three-dimensional representations of objects, such as landscapes, independent of weather conditions and sunlight illumination. SAR technology is a multidisciplinary field that involves microwave technology, antenna technology, signal processing, and image information processing. The use of SAR technology continues grow at a rapid pace in a variety of applications such as high-resolution wide-swath observation, multi-azimuth information acquisition, high-temporal information acquisition, 3-D terrain mapping, and image quality improvement. Design Technology of Synthetic Aperture Radar provides detailed coverage of the fundamental concepts, theories, technology, and design of SAR systems and sub-systems. Supported by the author’s over two decades of research and practice experience in the field, this in-depth volume systematically describes SAR design and presents the latest research developments. Providing examination of all topics relevant to SAR—from radar and antenna system design to receiver technology and signal and image information processing—this comprehensive resource: Provides wide-ranging, up-to-date examination of all major topics related to SAR science, systems, and software Includes guidelines to conduct grounding system designs and analysis Offers coverage of all SAR algorithm classes and detailed SAR algorithms suitable for enabling software implementations Surveys SAR and computed imaging literature of the last sixty years Emphasizes high resolution imaging, moving target indication, and system engineering Design Technology of Synthetic Aperture Radar is indispensable for graduate students majoring in SAR system design, microwave antenna, signal and information processing as well as engineers and technicians involved in SAR system techniques.