About Us

Tele-Rilevamento Europa TRE

TRE

Established in March 2000, TRE is the first spin-off company of the Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI).

TRE complements its commercial activities by extending the academic research of POLIMI in SAR data processing into applied research and development of new service products.

TRE is the world-wide exclusive licensee of the Permanent Scatterers (PS) Technique ñ patented by POLIMI in 1999.

The PS Technique is a powerful technology for ground deformation monitoring, using satellite borne radar imaging. PS (Permanent Scatterers) are ìradar targetsî, distributed across the earthís surface and tracked by satellites. When PS remain coherent within a multi-temporal radar data set, it is possible to detect and measure millimetre variations in the sensor-target distance, over time. PS typically correspond to features on man-made structures such as buildings, bridges, dams, water-pipelines, antennae, as well as to stable natural reflectors (e.g. exposed rocks). Indeed, the PS comprise a sort of ìnatural geodetic networkî for accurately monitoring surface deformation phenomena, as well as the stability of individual structures. Starting with the identification of such PS, the POLIMI PS Techniqueô analyzes thousands of square kilometers of territory, within an extremely short time scale.

Wherever PS are present, it is possible to:

  1. establish their geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude, usually expressed in the WGS-84 reference system);
  2. estimate their displacement rate for which the precision can be as good as 0.1 mm/year, depending on the amount of available data and the PS density;
  3. reconstruct the displacement history of an individual PS where the precision can be as good as 1 mm on a single measurement.

All PS measurements can be downloaded onto Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and compared with other information layers, for better interpretation of results.

Data sources

TRE processes data from SAR sensors, mounted on the ERS, ENVISAT, JERS and RADARSAT satellites. In the near future, additional satellites carrying SAR sensors will be launched, providing continuity between current data sources and new acquisitions, increasing PS density and improving data accuracy.

Applications

The PS Technique can analyze and monitor: slow landslides and instability phenomena; subsidence or uplift due to natural or man-induced activity; seismic faults and volcanic areas; managing land use; checking the stability of buildings

(See Articles published by Tele-Rilevamento Europa TRE at EARSC's website)

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