Supporting Civil Security with Earth Observation in GMES/Kopernikus – DLR technology and project

Lead by the European Commission and its member states, supported by ESA and the European space agencies, the GMES Project (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) plans to create a series of core services to support decision making for public bodies and state agencies. The “S” in GMES stands for “Security”, represented by the core service of “rapid mapping” in the aftermath of natural disasters and a service to support civil security aspects, demanded by policy-makers. Application projects funded by national agencies, ESA and the European Commission have prepared future operational services. The data of high resolution satellites and the expertise of DLR in SAR and optical image analysis have been used in the above mentioned European projects. Issues of civil security covered therein include traffic monitoring (land and sea), right-of-way and border control, monitoring of conventions against proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, monitoring illegal activities and intelligence gathering for state security agencies. Based on very high resolution optical and SAR data (the latter from the German Mission TerraSAR-X), optical stereo technologies discover e.g. change in 3-D perspective and SAR imaging delivers new approaches to monitor very small changes in the surface elevation and structure. Besides satellite sensors, DLR has also developed a new airborne surveillance and traffic monitoring system based on high-end professional consumer digital cameras. The paper will also review the deployment of very high resolution satellites in Europe and the development of civil security (and dual use) applications within the GMES initiative, such as the German national D-Secure, the FP7 SAFER and G-Mosaic projects