The project “Cloud detection in the Cloud”, of the researcher Luis Gómez Chova from the School of Engineering and the Image Processing Laboratory (ETSE-UV), has been awarded with the Google Earth Engine Awards, a recognition that the US multinational gives each year since its collaboration programme with universities and research centres. The project will destine 60.000 dollars to develop an automatic algorithm of cloud detection for Earth observation satellites. It is the first time that this award is bestowed to a Spanish centre.
The main objective of the project is developing an automatic algorithm of cloud detection in images acquired by Earth observation satellites within the framework of the Google Earth Engine platform (GEE), an ‘online’ computer system created in 2010, with enough computing power to programme algorithms that access directly the data bases of images that come from the space agencies, and to process all the information.
The Google Earth Engine awards focus on research works related to the remote sensing and the observation of the Earth on Google Maps and Google Earth, in a way that they make use of the massive processing capacities of the Google installations. The programme finances research projects associated to universities and research centres, and promotes the recruitment of young researchers.
The methodology proposed by Gómez Chova, and now recognised by Google, makes use of both the information contained in the satellite images catalogue available at GEE, and the previous knowledge on the physical properties of the clouds. “The idea is to learn directly from the data of a sensor, determining the characteristics that best distinguish the clouds from the surface by imposing logical restrictions in the spectral, spatial, and time domain”, he says. “The potential and the immense volume of data that have to be processed when we deal with high spectral, spatial, and time resolution justifies the implementation of an operative service of clouds detection, using the resources of computing offered by GEE”, he concludes.
In this edition, Google has recognised nine proposals –a 10% of them come from all the parts of the world–, seven from Unites States and two European, these last ones from Universitat de València and from the Dutch Wageningen University. It is the first time that this award, that is currently in his fourth edition, goes to Spain.
Luis Gómez Chova is tenured university professor for the Department of Electronic Engineering (School of Engineering) of Universitat de València, and researcher for the Image Processing Laboratory (LPI), in the Scientific Park of the same institution.
