Facilities

At the University of Delaware, the CRS serves as a focal point for the basic and applied research on physical oceanography and ocean remote sensing. The Center employs about 20 faculty, staff, graduate students, and visiting scientists. Since 1972, it has trained about 200 specialists from 14 countries and conducted coastal studies in the U.S., South America, and Asia. Research vessels, aircraft, and satellites equipped with multispectral, infrared, and microwave sensors are used for gathering data. Advanced interactive computer systems are employed to analyze and enhance the satellite imagery, as described in the equipment section. In addition to course work, graduate students do theses or dissertations on satellite oceanography, global climate change, air-sea interactions, ocean dynamics and wetland studies. Because of the accomplishments of our research, NASA Headquarters designated our Center as a Center of Excellence in 1997.

 

The University of Delaware provides well-equipped laboratories for basic and applied research in the College of Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. Computer facilities necessary for data analysis are available at the University and in the individual departments. The Morris Library offers an outstanding collection of over two million books and reference journals, with an excellent variety of technical publications, plus a special collection of over 100,000 maps.

 

At the University's Center for Remote Sensing, Dell Precision workstations are available for the analysis of digital data derived from various satellite sensors such as TOPEX/Poseidon Altimeter, NSCAT, Quikscat and ERS-1,2 Scatterometers, and NOAA systems. The Center uses mainly Dell Precision T-series based workstations. Computers with Intel Xeon 2.40GHz (2 processors) CPU are the main server for the group. It has NVIDA 256M Quodra NVS 290 graphics with a 24-inch 32-bit color display, 8 GB of RAM and over 6TB of hard disk. In addition, the Center hosts a myriad of SUN workstations including three additional Ultra-60, two Ultra-10, two Ultra-5, a SparcStation 20/Model 614, with two 60 MHz Super Sparc processors, two Sparc 5/Model 110's, and LX and an ELC. There are also 3 Textronix color X-terminals as well as an assortment of PCs and NTs in the Center. The Center has high-res. color printing capabilities for color images. Image processing capabilities include image enhancement, classification, and statistical analysis. Both raster and vector based Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques are used to aid in data analysis and presentation. The systems are programmable in several high and low level programming languages. The Center has a large applications software library, making the applications very powerful and adaptable research tools. Improved Software programs are continually being developed by Center personnel for new applications and sensors.

 

 

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