Kickoff AlignSAR project (ESA Open SAR Library – EXPRO+)

The AlignSAR project is funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), in the Initiation to Tender for OPEN SAR LIBRARY – EXPRO+ call. It successfully kicked off on 23 February 2023 at ESRIN (ESA Center for Earth Observation), Frascati, Italy, and will run till February 2024. It focuses on developing open-access methods and tools to offer FAIR-guided open SAR benchmark dataset library designed for SAR-based artificial intelligence applications, while ensuring interoperability and consistency with existing and upcoming initiatives and technologies, facilitating wider exploitation of SAR data and its integration and combination with other datasets.

This library will contain meaningful and accurate SAR signatures created by integrating and aligning multi-SAR images and other geodetic measurements in time and space. This project has a total budget of 300,000 Euro. This project is carried out by four consortium partners: University of Twente, University of Leeds, AGH university of science and technology and RHEA group.

We will develop methods and tools for the creation of SAR benchmark datasets for machine learning applications, and provide a reference, quality-controlled, documented, open database of SAR spatial and temporal signatures of complex real-world targets, with high diversity, to serve a wide spectrum of applications with societal relevance.

 The University of Twente is the lead partner, and is in charge of project management, implementing SAR benchmark dataset creation and documentation, demonstration, supporting other consortium partners in their work, and coordinating WP0 (project management) and WP2 (method development for SAR benchmark dataset creation and documentation. Dr. Ling Chang at the department of Earth Observation is the principal investigator for this project.