IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2018 - 37

* the possibility of having an assigned quota for using
the COSMO-SkyMed system
◗ a copartner is a national or international entity with a
relationship agreement characterized by
* the use of some functionalities provided by COSMOSkyMed (which is called the main partner), i.e., acquisition request ranking and harmonization.
IEM SCENARIOS
IEM capabilities are applied through something called cooperation scenarios. One important case of this is the relationship between COSMO-SkyMed and other EO systems
[5]-[7]. Cooperation scenarios are classified into two broad
areas: 1) cooperation by federation and 2) cooperation by
physical components.
Cooperation by federation allows cooperation to be
granted through an exchange of services, according to agreed
upon interfaces and protocols, and does not require the integration of physical components. For example, in the interoperability area, this form of cooperation involves the
possibility of accessing the catalog of a partner's EO systems,
searching for given products, ordering them, and receiving the requested products. Reciprocally, COSMO-SkyMed
allows the partner's EO systems the same type of access to its
own catalog. This interoperability is implemented through
gateways that allow access to a partner's data through a catalog interoperability protocol, developed according to Open

Ability to Plan,
Acquire, and
Process Data from
Different
Missions/Sensors

Geospatial Consortium guidelines, and that manage the
data imports and distribution to the petitioners.
Cooperation by physical components, on the other
hand, encompasses
◗ increasing COSMO-SkyMed's own proficiencies by scaling up, e.g., by adding physical components, such as further acquisition stations or further processing chains,
called cooperation with itself
◗ inclusion in COSMO-SkyMed of new proficiencies,
e.g., optical capacities by adding optical processors in a
COSMO-SkyMed processing chain
◗ the capability of building up a system of systems. One
actual example under development is the Italian-Argentine Satellite System for Emergency Management
(or SIASGE) program, an integration of the CSK (SAR-X)
and the Argentine Microwaves Observation Satellite
(SAOCOM) (SAR-L) missions.
* The SAOCOM GS architecture is based on that of
the COSMO-SkyMed.
* Italy provides the Argentinean partner with COSMOSkyMed mission-related hardware/software components and subsystems-known as partner-furnished items (PFIs)-to be integrated into the GS
architecture.
* The Argentinean partner provides Italy with PFIs
from SAOCOM to allow COSMO-SkyMed to incorporate SAOCOM's capacities into its architecture.

MMI Able to Handle
Data from Different
Missions/Sensors

Multimission/
Multisensor

Expandability
Interoperability
Scalability

Addition of
Processing
Chain Instances

Addition of
New Processors in a
Processing
Addition of
Chain Instance
New Acquisition
Stations

Interoperability
Through
Integration of
Plug-In

Interoperability
Through
Implementation of
Standard Protocols

FIGURE 2. A graphical representation of the IEM concept. MMI: man-machine interface.
march 2018

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2018