Interoperability of heterogeneous components: the cornerstone of future geospatial observation systems
- Paper number
IAC-09.B1.2.10
- Author
Mr. Mario Profili, Thales Alenia Space Italia, Italy
- Coauthor
Ms. Francesca Spataro, Italy
- Year
2009
- Abstract
A new consciousness of national security is spreading worldwide, due to the imperative necessity to guarantee the safety of citizens and the integrity of strategic infrastructures and services, counteracting against hidden, less predictable, and lethal threats stemming from regional conflicts, organized crime, and terrorism. Also, security involves not only Defense, but also several civilian institutional entities, such as police forces, magistrate, civilian protection, coast guards, etc. These new political scenarios of multi-national cooperation require state-of-art technologies and global systems of surveillance and protection. The “need to see” has recently accelerated due to the consciousness of Earth environment degradation, and of space observation as a privileged asset to monitor and preserve National Security. Governments are investing in Earth Observation to face these problems, and Italy, with COSMO-SkyMed and COSMO Second Generation, is contributing to these objectives through the development of new technologically advanced systems, and the promotion of multi-national partnerships for Defense and homeland security. In this framework, Radar Earth Observation Systems offer the possibility to be easily integrated within a larger context of a multi-mission Geospatial System, made of different heterogeneous components. This constitutes from an utilization viewpoint a great advantage, for various reasons. The main reason is the need of managing the whole system operations with the highest level of flexibility, in order to fulfill a multiplicity of User’s needs, which may arise from different typologies of Users such as Defenses, civilian, scientific Users; this is performed by adopting standardized information access mechanisms and interoperability protocols. Another reason is the need to guarantee an access policy for heterogeneous users to the services and data provided by the Geospatial system, in accordance to their access rights, need to know, and International Regulations; this is achieved by establishing standard data policy control mechanisms, as resource sharing rules. This paper illustrates how a new conception Radar EO System (e.g. as COSMO Second Generation may be), starting from a consolidated heritage (e.g. COSMO-SkyMed), by means of interoperability services, may be integrated as a component of a larger Geospatial System, in order to offer both core services and image exploitation services, and provide specific integrated system capabilities and performances, according to resource sharing rules, and priorities established among different types of Users (Civilian and Defense).
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)