AI4SAR- Artificial Intelligence for Synthetic Aperture Radar

Mihai Datcu (Remote Sensing Technology Institute (IMF), German Aerospace Center (DLR), University Politechnica Bucharest (UPB))
May 04, 2018 — 11:00 — "Salle du conseil du L2S"

Abstract

The challenges of the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image formation principles, the high data volume and the very high acquisition rate stimulated from the very beginning the elaborations of sophisticated techniques. Meanwhile the SAR technologies have immensely evolved. The state of the art sensors deliver widely different imaging modes, and have made considerable progress in spatial and radiometric resolution, target acquisition strategies, or geographical coverage and data rates. Generally imaging sensors generate an isomorphic representation of the observed scene. This is not the case for SAR, the observations are a doppelganger of the scattered field, an indirect signature of the imaged object. This spots the load of SAR image understanding, and the outmost challenge of Big SAR Data Science, as a new and particular challenge of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The presentation reviews and analyses the new approaches of SAR imaging leveraging the recent advances in physical process based ML and AI methods and signal processing. This is leading to Computational Imaging paradigms where intelligence is the analytical component of the end-to-end sensor and Data Science chain design. A particular focus is on the scientific methods of Deep Learning and an information theoretical model of the SAR information extraction process.

Biography

Mihai Datcu received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electronics and Telecommunications from the University Politechnica Bucharest UPB, Romania, in 1978 and 1986. In 1999 he received the title Habilitation à diriger des recherches in Computer Science from University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France. Currently he is Senior Scientist and Image Mining research group leader with the Remote Sensing Technology Institute (IMF) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, and Professor with the Department of Applied Electronics and Information Engineering, Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology, UPB. From 1992 to 2002 he had a longer Invited Professor assignment with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich. From 2005 to 2013 he has been Professor holder of the DLR-CNES Chair at ParisTech, Paris Institute of Technology, Telecom Paris. His interests are in Data Science, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, and Computational Imaging for space applications. He is involved in Big Data from Space European, ESA, NASA and national research programs and projects. He is a member of the ESA Big Data from Space Working Group. He received in 2006 the Best Paper Award, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Prize, in 2008 the National Order of Merit with the rank of Knight, for outstanding international research results, awarded by the President of Romania, and in 1987 the Romanian Academy Prize Traian Vuia for the development of SAADI image analysis system and activity in image processing. He is IEEE Fellow. He is holder of a 2017 Blaise Pascal Chair at CEDRIC, CNAM.