Astromates

"SAR" IS A LIFE SAVER!

High-Level Project Summary

Our planet is full of surprises and so many interesting things that we need to discover, but we struggle to do that because we can't go everywhere on earth, so we use a high advanced technology called remote sensing, but the problem with this technology is that it needs specific weather and conditions to provide clear images, so scientists came up with a solution called synthetic aperture radar. Our video will explain to the public what is "SAR" and how it will benefit us as a community, as many people need to be aware of the impact of this tremendous data which will be collected by "SAR" to help discover landscapes, study forests etc…

Link to Project "Demo"

https://youtu.be/_8UfbFOqZDY

Link to Final Project

https://youtu.be/_ytVW02jXBI

Detailed Project Description

Our project is to make a simple video explaining synthetic aperture radar.

So what is the synthetic aperture radar?

In a shortcut, the synthetic aperture radar which is known as "SAR" is a form of radar that is used to create two-dimensional images or three-dimensional reconstruction of objects, for example landscapes. The radar can provide us with photos needed for researches under any circumstances, which makes it the most important sensor nowadays.

How does the "SAR" work?

The radar’s sensor directs and sends microwaves that are known as bands. Bands that are most commonly used are X-band, C-band and L-band, there are also K-band and P-band, but they are rarely used. The radar directs and sends the bands towards the earth’s direction then receives them again, therefore it calculates the amount of energy that returns, in addition to the distance between the shooting point and the rebound point.

Assuming that the earth's surface is one big wide forest :

The X- band will reach and observe the top of the forest, it also watches over the canopy to spot new holes indicating deforestation has occurred.

The C-band will reach and observe the forest's Mid-level, such as leaves and branches, it can tell you a bit more about what's happening underneath the canopy.

The L-band will reach and observe different levels of the forest standard, even deeper into the forest, including trunks.

When the SAR sends the bands and receives them back, it doesn't only measure the amount of energy that returns from the reaction. It also records the reaction between the band and the earth’s surface, such that it directs the band in many directions. This action is called polarization.

First: Horizontal polarization (H):

It causes double bounce. It’s used with buildings and other man-made facilities.

Second: Vertical polarization (V):

It causes the random distribution to the band. It’s used in the reaction with empty land or water, which states that there’s no forest on this part of the surface.

Third: Special types of bands are directed at horizontal polarization and received at vertical polarization or vice versa:

This causes a change in the direction of the returning band after its reaction with the earth’s surface. This type of polarization is used in reacting with forests and this confirms that this part of the surface is forest. Ex: if someone cuts down trees, they will be identified and legally punished, that’s one of many reasons why the SAR is called “FOREST PROTECTOR “.

What exactly do our projects do?

Provide a high-quality, simple yet very informative, and not complicated video that educates people about synthetic aperture radar and its benefits and the way the radar works.

What benefits does it have?

What makes our project unique is its simplicity and at the same time being highly informative, helpful and every piece of information in the video comes from a scientifically reliable source, Although it's an educational video, our video isn't boring. It's creative enough to make people excited to do more researches after watching it.

We hope to raise awareness about such an important and highly effective technology in our lives as we want more people to get educated about this topic and to understand the great dangers we would face without it, it gives us the ability to predict any volcanic activity and warn people about it, Not only volcanoes but also tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes.

And that’s how the "SAR" can help save lives!

A link to check: https://astromates.co/

Tools :

Adobe photoshop cc

video scribe

camtasia studio

images from NASA's resources

images from Google

Space Agency Data

What space agency data you used in your project?

We used data taken from NASA's official website and other trusted resources like JAXA and ESA.

How we used it?

Reading it to learn more about the topic.

Making this data more simple in our video, so people can understand it easily with fun.

How it inspired us?

The data inspired our team by making us more passionate about the topic and wanting to learn more and more about the space

and inspired our project because it has given us a lot of information to say in the video!

Hackathon Journey

We would describe our hackathon journey to be an unforgettable experience, it was very helpful and interesting to us as we learned to go through the experience together and to get benefit from it. Even if we lose the competition, we gained a lot of experience as teamwork skills, patience, and co-operation. Although we had so many setbacks and challenges, we solved them by research, being hard workers, and helping each other with sharing knowledge.

We have chosen this challenge because we have noticed the ignorance and lack of awareness of space, so we decided to increase people’s awareness and curiosity about "SAR", after watching our video they’ll do more researches about "SAR" by themselves.

Our approach to developing this project is simplicity we wanted to make our project very informative yet simple to gain the interest of our audience.

References

NASA resources:

External resources:

Global Judging

This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.