The Thermal Remote Sensing Group has contributed to basic and applied research in remote sensing over the last 35 years, developing its own methodology for the treatment and digital processing of images (calibration, geometric correction, cloud detection), the necessary corrections to obtain primary physical magnitudes from satellite images (atmospheric and emissivity correction; obtaining surface temperature and emissivity), the development of multispectral methods, the subsequent application for the estimation of secondary parameters related to the environment (evapotranspiration, water stress and desertification indices, water quality, etc.), and the development of new sensors to measure the temperature and emissivity of the surface. ), and the development of new sensors. There is coincidence with the activities of other groups as well as with public and private entities in Spain, and in international, preferably European, environments. Suffice it to point out, for example, the following:

•  The group is involved in an international team calibrating and validating the land surface temperature provided by the AATSR sensor on board the ENVISAT satellite. Additionally, it is working on the calibration of ASTER and MODIS sensors on board NASA's EOS-Terra and EOS-Aqua platforms, as well as Landsat5-TM, Landsat7-ETM+ and the recently launched Landsat8-TIRS, whose thermal infrared spectral bands were established on the basis of previous results of our group (Caselles et al., 1998).
• Currently, our research group is a supporting member of the validation and calibration team of the future ESA Sentinel-3 satellite (Sentinel-3 CalVal Team) through a collaboration with the University of Leicester (UK).
• The applicant research group belongs to the Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity (LSTE) Focus Group, within the Land Product Validation (LPV) group of the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS). The LSTE Focus Group is responsible for fostering international collaboration to define protocols and develop databases for the validation of satellite temperature and emissivity products.
• Collaboration has also been established with the Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory, USDA-ARS (USA) for the estimation of latent and sensible heat fluxes by remote sensing, and with the Instituto de Hidrología de Llanuras (IHLLA, Argentina) for studies of evapotranspiration and water availability in crops.
• The group participates in the SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) mission to validate the soil moisture product and establish relationships with thermal infrared emissivity through ESA's CAT-1 AO-4748 project.
• Recently, another collaboration has been established with the US Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for the validation of Earth's surface temperature products.
• A collaboration with the Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center (ALARC) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA-ARS) has allowed the group to participate in a NASA-funded project as part of the activities within the study phase of the HyspIRI mission, in addition to carrying out some studies on the dependence of emissivity on humidity.
• The group actively collaborates with some companies (Cartographic Institute of Catalonia, LandStudios, Dorna Agri, Norma Agrícola, Deimos Imaging, Repsol YPF, etc.), which allows interconnecting academic research and the productive sector.

Other research and experimental development on natural sciences and engineering