IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2015 - 38

FIgURE 8. COMS/MI image (Full Disk mode, on August 26, 2012).

Processing System (CMDPS). The major functions of the
CMDPS are the extraction of meteorological products
from the calibrated and geo-located level 1.5 data and the
development of a calibration algorithm for monitoring
and upgrading [10, 14].
V. CONTRIBUTION OF EARTH OBSERVATION
ACTIVITIES IN SOUTH KOREA
Satellite-based Earth observation in Korea has been advanced
through the successful launch of the KOMPSAT-series in
general and KOMPSAT-2 in particular. The high-resolution
imagery is very useful for the spatial data infrastructure in
both the public and civilian sectors, so it is widely applied in
land-use and land-cover mapping, change detection, agriculture, forestry, environmental monitoring, and disaster management. In particular, the high-resolution optical imagery
of KOMPSAT-2 and 3 support the public open platform
V-World, which is virtual mapping and geographical information services covering the entire Korean peninsula [16].
Satellite data applications are enhanced by processing
raw image data into standard products, as well as by applying value-added image processing. KARI has established and
maintains a satellite application division, in which KOMPSAT-series satellite operations, data receiving and processing,
image calibration and validation, and image data distribution to users are performed in close cooperation. Furthermore, KARI Earth observation research groups support
policy making by the Korean government through satellite
data distribution as well as satellite remote sensing applications that are employed in addressing socio-economic and
environmental problems. South Korea participates in the
intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO) as
an executive committee member representing the Asia and
Oceania region and encourages national as well as international cooperation for the Global Earth Observation System
of Systems (GEOSS).
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KARI also contributes by sharing expert knowledge
with national and international remote sensing communities and by organizing international workshops
and training programs with invited foreign experts. Special partnerships have been nurtured with international
research groups including the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) of the United States, the
European Space Agency (ESA), and the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Additionally, as a member agency
of the International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters'
initiative since 2011, KARI provides high-resolution satellite images from the KOMPSAT satellites for registered
disasters. The International Charter is a non-profit international program for providing emergency response satellite data free of charge to those affected by disasters
anywhere in the world [17]. The 32nd Executive Secretariat and Board meeting was held at KARI on October 14 to
17, 2014. After that, KARI has taken the lead agency role
for a six-month period.
AUTHOR INFORmATION
Hyun-Ok Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1974.
She studied geo-information in landscape planning and
received her Bachelor and M.Sc. degree from University of
Seoul, South Korea. She further majored in remote sensing
focusing on urban ecology and environmental planning
and received her Ph.D. degree in engineering from Berlin
University of Technology (TU Berlin), Berlin, Germany in
2007. After finishing postdoctoral work at the Institute of
Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at TU
Berlin she joined the Korea Aerospace Research Institute
(KARI), Daejeon, South Korea in 2010. Her main research
interests focus on the urban ecological subjects, climate
change effects on environment, and agriculture. She is also
very interested in international cooperation and currently
participates as executive secretariat member of KARI in the
International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters'.
Hee-Seob Kim was born in 1970, Republic of KOREA.
He received the B.S., M.S., Ph.D. degrees in aerospace engineering from Seoul National University, KOREA, in 1993,
1995, and 2000 respectively. He held systems engineering
position for satellite development such as KOMPSAT-2 and
KOMPSAT-3 from 2000 to 2012. He is a principal researcher in the field of satellite application. His current research
interests include image processing, calibration and validation, and satellite information application.
Hyo-Suk Lim received BS and MS degrees from Seoul National University, South Korea, in 1985 and 1987. She got
a PhD degree in Meteorology from Texas A&M University,
USA, in 1993 and worked as a Post Doc. at NASA/GSFC
from February 1994 to February 1996. In March 1996,
she joined the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI)
in South Korea, where she is currently a director of satellite application division. She mainly has focused on satellite
data application in earth science, calibration/validation of
satellite data, international collaboration of remote sensing.
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