In 1990, with funding provided by the National Science Council, the center carried out the project of planning the construction of Taiwan’s first resource satellite receiving station. The station was completed in three years. At present, it is capable of receiving data from SPOT- 5, Terra, Aqua and the FORMOSAT-2, which was launched in May, 2004. The footprint of the ground station reception zone covers an area of about 3,000 km in radius: east to U.S.A.’s Guam, west to China’s Gang-Su, north to Japan’s Hokkaido and south to South China Sea.
The station was originally a hardware and software integrated system in 1993. With the advancement of computer technologies and operations of several new generation satellites, the original system, except the 13-meter antenna, has been replaced by new equipments. For instance, indigenously developed "Browse System", IAPS (FORMOSAT-2), TS-5(Spot-2,-4,-5), DIS (ECL signal storage), SARPS/ASAR (ERS-2, ENVISAT), and MODIS System (Terra, Aqua). Moreover, a 6.1-meter antenna has been brought into operation since October 2003 to avoid any satellite conflicts in reception during services.
In order to meet the data processing requirements of both SPOT-5 and FORMOSAT-2, along with the integration of other satellite data processing systems, the station has developed a new interactive operation system called Multi-Sensor Geocoded Production System, which is based upon many research and development results of its geometric image processing expertise over the past two decades.
Currently, there are more than 30 worldwide resource satellite ground stations including U.S.A., France, Canada, Japan, South Korea, China, Israel, Singapore, etc. Despite the fact that our station has been operating since 1993, it still considered as a newcomer, the facilities and performance of our station are ranked at the top among worldwide ground stations. Our station is the biggest satellite data provider in Taiwan for various utilizations in resource inventory and environmental monitoring. In addition, another unique feature of our station is its multifunctional "three in one" infrastructure. In other words, it carries out three different functionalities, i.e., data reception and processing, research and development, and promotion and education. Our station is also, among the few stations, located in academic institutions.
From purely academic cooperation to actual applications, the station provides satellite data and technical assistance to the central and local governments, academic institutions, and various private organizations. Undoubtedly, satellite data has evolved into playing a significant role in our daily lives. In order to further enhance the interaction with our users, a "Satellite Data User and Application Workshop" is conducted in July/August annually by the station to provide our users more information about the station’s functions and development directions, and sharing experiences among the data users. Ever since the inception of the station, it has been making continuous efforts in promoting this relatively new technology.
In recognizing to the station’s successful operating experience, the Korean Advance Institute for Science and Technology (KAIST), the National University of Singapore, and Japan’s Hiroshima Institute of Technology had all paid a visit to our center, in the past period during the initial planning stages of their own receiving station. Moreover, through the annual ground-station meetings with personnel from other stations, we have established a close cooperative relationship with other countries such as Singapore, China, South Korea, Japan and Canada.
The Resource Satellite Data Receiving Station has ten part-time staff include one person-in-charge, two common person-in-charge, and seven assistant research staff. There is a total of twenty full-time members being employed. They are divided into three groups (administration, operations, and task).
Director: Prof. Tsai, Fuan
Co-Director: Prof. Lin, Tang-Huang
Assistant Research Staff: Prof. Ren, Hsuan、 Prof. Liu, Chian-Yi、 Prof. Chiang, Shou-Hao、 Prof. Tseng, Kuo-Hsin、 Prof. Huang, Chih-Yuan、
Our station mainly provides satellite data and technique service. Users' organizations are in various walks of life. It shows that satellite data has connected closely with our daily life. Since our station started using in 1993, domestic satellite telemetry has extended from academic research to practical application. More than 1000 organizations have been accumulated using the service.
To strengthen the connection with users, our station holds "User Workshop on Resource Satellite Data" every year. It can let users not only understand our station's running and developing direction but also displays their application achievement. The station started "Remote Sensing Techniques and Application Training Course" from November 26th 1996. Up to now, more than 50 sessions have been held.
Since our station has been completed, the work of promotion and education has never stopped. The purpose is nothing but hoping to convey the knowledge and ability of telemetry to Taiwan people. Our station will not give up any display opportunity; therefore, we co-operate with chief museums and culture business organizations to hold long-term and large-scale special exhibitions and mobile exhibitions around Taiwan.
Nevertheless, our station also held many activities, produces satellite image calendar and etc to enhance the popular satellite and remote sensing technology education.
During the construction period (1991-1993) of our station, we had known that there were nineteen resource satellite data receiving stations running under the auspices of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (in the USA, France, Japan and Brazil), the National Remote Sensing Center (in Canada and India) and the National Technology Committee (in the Republic of South Africa and Kingdom of Thailand). These receiving stations are merely responsible for receiving and processing data. They simply provide original images for uses. Our station operates in coordination with domestic needs, so that in addition to the afore-mentioned functions, we also take education, promotion, research and development into account. Our success has attracted the attention of the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), National University of Singapore and Hiroshima Institute of Technology, who visited our station at one time or another when beginning their own plans. They are all running successfully at present.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong was also planning to establish a receiving station and visited our station in 2004. They had successfully established the station in 2005. In addition to the above, through annual receiving station conferences, our station has established close cooperative relationships with stations in Mainland China, Australia, the Republic of South Africa, Canada and Japan. The receiving radius of our station extends to 3000 kilometers, covering the most prosperous area of Asia (including Japan, Korea, Mainland China, the Indochina Peninsula, the South China Sea, the Philippines and North Borneo). This area has great potential in terms of economic development and the need for satellite data will be considerable.
Our receiving station’s basic operating procedure is to encourage international exchange and co-operation, to that end we continually invite internationally renowned scholars to visit, learn, or give speeches at our institute; we support and fund international workshops; encourage colleagues to participate in international conferences and publish their research findings in international journals, and by participating in annual conferences we have built close cooperative relationships with similar receiving stations in Mainland China, Australia, South Africa, Canada, Japan and other nations worldwide with the goal of forming cooperative research and information sharing agreements with them. Through cooperation with foreign research institutes and the maintaining of scholarly ties, we all enjoy the results of the research, which increases the effectiveness of this station and serves to maintain our competitiveness internationally.
Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research, National Central University
No. 300, Zhongda Rd., Zhongli District, Taoyuan City 320317, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
Tel:(03)4257232;(03)422-7151 #57600~57603 , Fax:03-425-5535 , E-mail: service@csrsr.ncu.edu.tw
Satellite Image Query : (03)422-9332;(03)422-7151 #57601 service@csrsr.ncu.edu.tw
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