Facilities and Equipment

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, and ocean dynamics. Because of the accomplishments of our research, NASA Headquarters designated our Center as a Center of Excellence in 1997, and the PI was selected by the NSF as a National Presidential Faculty Fellow in 1994.

The University of Delaware provides well-equipped laboratories for basic and applied research in the College of Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and the Graduate College of Marine Studies. 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, Sun based 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 SUN RISC based workstations. A SUN Ultra-60 with two 500 MHZ UltraSparc processors is the main server for the group. It has Creator 3-D series graphics with a 21-inch 24-bit color display, 512 MB of RAM and over 1000 GB of disk. It is also equipped with a 12 GB 8MM tape drive and a 70GB DLT tape drive. 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 them very powerful and adaptable research tools. Improved Software programs are continually being developed by Center personnel for new applications and sensors.

back to the Center for Remote Sensing Page.

Last modified: November 8, 2004
Brian Dzwonkowski --- briandz@newark.cms.udel.edu