Frequency Allocations in Remote Sensing

Welcome! You are on to the web site of the Frequency Allocations in Remote Sensing (FARS) Committee of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society. The aim of these pages is to provide information and resources, and to inform the general public about frequency allocation issues.

The Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society seeks to advance geoscience and remote sensing science and technology through scientific, technical and educational activities. The Society strives to promote a high level of technical excellence among its members by exchange of information through conferences, meetings, workshops, publications, and through its committees to provide for the needs of its members.

FARS Mission

The Frequency allocations in Remote Sensing Technical Committee goal is to interface between GRSS and the radio-frequency regulatory world by

• educating the remote sensing community on spectrum management processes and issues;
• promoting the development of radio frequency interference detection and mitigation technology;
• organizing technical sessions at conferences, workshops, etc. on the above processes, issues and technologies;
• providing spectrum managers and regulators with technical input and perspective from remote sensing scientists and engineers;
• fostering the exchange of information between researchers in different fields, such as remote sensing, radio astronomy, telecommunications, etc. with the common scope of minimizing harmful interference between systems.

Click here to join the FARS Technical Committee

If you have comments or contributions to these pages please contact FARS by email at fars_chairs@grss-ieee.org

The FARS Technical Committee encourages participation from all its members. The committee organization includes the Chair, two Co-Chairs, a Secretary and an Adviser on Spectrum Management.

Frequency Allocations in Remote Sensing Technical Committee Chair

Dr. Paolo de Matthaeis Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research Center (GESTAR) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, Maryland USA Email: paolo.dematthaeis@nasa.gov

Frequency Allocations in Remote Sensing Technical Committee Co-Chair

Dr. Roger Oliva Balague Department of Earth Observation Projects European Space Agency Madrid Spain Email: Roger.Oliva.Balague@esa.int

Frequency Allocations in Remote Sensing Technical Committee Co-Chair

Dr. Tobias Bollian German Aerospace Center (DLR) Germany Email: tobias.bollian@dlr.de

Frequency Allocations in Remote Sensing Technical Committee Advisor on Spectrum Management

Mr. Thomas von Deak National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – consultant USA Email: radioregulations@gmail.com

Related International and National Organizations

• International Telecommunication Union (ITU), an agency of the United Nations
• Space Frequency Coordination Group (SFCG)
• European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations
  (CEPT)
• Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL)
• Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT)
• National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), part of the USA the Department of Commerce
• USA Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
• European Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG)
• European Union Radio Spectrum Committee (RSC)
• Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC)
• Committee on Radio Frequencies (CORF) of the USA National Academy of Sciences
• Scientific Committee on Frequency Allocations for Radio Astronomy and Space Science (IUCAF) of the International Council for Science
• Committee on Radio Astronomy Frequencies (CRAF) of the European Science Foundation

Documents

• FCC Table of Frequency Allocations
• European Table of Frequency Allocations
• Spectrum Management for Science in the 21st Century
• Handbook of Frequency Allocations and Spectrum Protection for Scientific Uses
• A Strategy for Active Remote Sensing amid Increased Demand for Radio Spectrum
• ITU Radio Regulations

Welcome to the IEEE GRSS database of Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) observations and frequency allocations for remote sensing. These online tools are still under development and enable one to:

• list RFI observations in tabular form and locate them on a map.
• lookup and display frequency allocations, with particular attention to those for EESS (Earth Exploration Satellite Service);

Selection criteria include country or ITU region, frequency range or frequency band (according to IEEE designation), as well as date range.

A brief tutorial on how to use the RFI observations tool is available here

Funding for developing these web applications is being provided by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society.

The database of RFI observation has been made possible thanks to the contribution of the SMOS and SMAP project teams to the RFI observation database. It is not intended to cover all occurrences of existing interference affecting these sensors. In addition, RFI may still be present in other EESS bands, even if it is not reported here.

RFI Observations

Frequency Allocations

Useful Links

Remote sensing instruments and missions:

• SMOS
• SMAP

RFI detection and localization

for SMOS

Oliva, Roger; Daganzo, Elena; Richaume, Philippe; Kerr, Y; Cabot, Francois; Soldo, Y; Anterrieu, Eric; Reul, Nicolas; Gutierrez, Antonio; Barbosa, Jose; Lopes, G. “Status of Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) in the 1400–1427MHz passive band based on six years of SMOS mission,” Remote Sensing of Environment, Vol. 180, 2016.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0034425716300141)

Yan Soldo, François Cabot, Ali Khazaal, Maciej Miernecki, Ewa Słomińska, Rémy Fieuzal, and Yann H. Kerr, “Localization of RFI Sources for the SMOS Mission: A Means for Assessing SMOS Pointing Performances,” IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, Vol. 8, No. 2, February 2015.
(http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=6873228)

for SMAP radiometer

Jeffrey R. Piepmeier, Joel T. Johnson, Priscilla N. Mohammed, Damon Bradley, Christopher Ruf, Mustafa Aksoy, Rafael Garcia, Derek Hudson, Lynn Miles, and Mark Wong, “Radio-Frequency Interference Mitigation for the Soil Moisture Active Passive Microwave Radiometer,” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Vol. 52, No. 1, January 2014.
(https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6616627)

Soldo, Y., Le Vine, D.M., Bringer, A., de Matthaeis, P., Oliva, R., Johnson, J.T. and Piepmeier, J.R., “Location of Radio-Frequency Interference Sources Using the SMAP L-Band Radiometer,” IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Vol. 99, pp.1-13, 2018.
(https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8403893)

About joining the Frequency Allocations in Remote Sensing Committee

Membership in the FARS Technical committee shall be open to anyone interested in issues related to frequency allocations for remote sensing. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Society membership is encouraged, but not required to join the FARS Technical Committee.

Join this Technical Committee

Current membership (as of February 2020):

Last Name	First Name	Affiliation	Country
	Sunita	Amity university, noida	India
Adams	Ian S.	Naval Research Lab	USA
Ahmad	Touseef	Space Applications Centre Ahmedabad	India
Aksoy	Mustafa	University at Albany, SUNY	USA
Al-Khaldi	Mohammad	ElectroScience Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Ohio State University	USA
Awuviri	Alexander	RFMICROTEK	Ghana
Barbosa	Jose	DEIMOS, Lisbon	Portugal
Benson	Michael	The University of Michigan, Radiation Lab	USA
Bettenhausen	Michael	Naval Research Lab	USA
Blackwell	William J.	MIT Lincoln Lab	USA
Bollian	Tobias	DLR	Germany
Boopathi	Nithyaprij	IITB-MonaXXX	Belarus
Borade	Vivek	Unknown	India
Bosch	Javier	JPL	USA
Bose	Soumojit	Center for Environmental Technology (CET) at CU Boulder	USA
Bradley	Damon	NASA Goddard SPace Flight Center	USA
Brewer	Marty	Remote Sensing Systems	USA
Bringer	Alexandra	ElectroScience Laboratory, The Ohio State University	USA
Brown	Shannon	NASA JPL	USA
Bruzzone	Lorenzo	Dept. of Information Engineering and Computer Science, University of Trento, Trento	Italy
Buch	Kaushal D.	Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope	India
Cabot	Francois	CUES	France
Cadirola	Martin	Ecotronics Ventures LLC	USA
Camps	Adriano	Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya and IEEC/UPC, Barcelona	Spain
Castro	Rita	Deimos Engenharia, Lisbon	Portugal
Chae	Chun Sik	NASA JPL	USA
Chandra	Madhu	Department of Microwave Engineering and Photonics, Chemnitz University of Technology	Germany
Chauhan	Narinder S.	NPOESS/IPO/The Aerospace Corp.	USA
Chen	David	AOSS Dept, The University of Michigan	USA
Crapolicchio	Raffaele	Serco	Italy
Cruz-Pol	Sandra	University of Peurto Rico at Mayagüez	USA
Daganzo-Eusebio	Elena	ESA	The Netherlands
De Amici	Giovanni	NASA Goddard SPace Flight Center	USA
DeBoer	David	Radio Astronomy Lab, University of California at Berkeley	USA
de Matthaeis	Paolo	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center	USA
Deng	Yu	Alion Science & Technology	USA
Dewhurst	Brian	NASA, Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation	USA
Dobson	Craig	NASA	USA
Dong	Xiaolong	National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences	China
Eichen	Elliot	Retired. Currently IEEE-USA Congressional Fellow	USA
Ellingson	Steven W.	ECE Dept, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	USA
Emery	William (Bill)	University of Colorado	USA
England	Anthony (Tony)	Dean, College of Engineering, Univ. of Michigan, Dearborn	USA
Farrar	Spencer Lee	The Aerospace Corporation	USA
Ford	John	National Radio Astronomy Observatory, WV	USA
Freedman	Adam	NASA JPL	USA
Gabarro	Carolina	Institut de Ciències del Mar, ICM-CSIC, and the SMOS Barcelona Expert Centre	Spain
Gaier	Todd	NASA JPL	USA
Gaikwad	Sandeep Vasant	Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University	India
Gaiser	Peter	Naval Research Lab	USA
Gasiewski	Al	ECE Dept, University of Colorado at Boulder	USA
Gite	Hanumant	Dept. of Computer Sci	India
Golbonhaghighi	Mohammadhossein	University of Oklahoma	USA
Gonzalez Gambau	Veronica	Barcelona Expert Center CSIC	Spain
Hardy	Caroline	University of Johannesburg	South Africa
He	Jieying	University of Colorado, Boulder	USA
Hornbuckle	Brian	Iowa State University	USA
Horne	William D.	NASA HQ	USA
Inggs	Mike	Dept of Electrical Engineering, University of Cape Town	South Africa
Johnson	Joel T.	ElectroScience Lab, Ohio State University,	USA
Judge	Jasmeet	Dept of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Florida	USA
Keeler	Jeff	Advanced Radar Corp	USA
Kerr	Yann	Director of CESBIO (CNES/CNRS/UPS/IRD)	France
Khalsa	Siri Jodha	U.Colo./NSIDC	USA
Khalsa	Siri Jodha	Univ. of Colorado, Boulder	USA
Kim	Duk-jin	Seoul National University	South Korea
Kim	Ed	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center	USA
Kim	Seungbum	NASA JPL	USA
Kristensen	Steen Savstrup	Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
Kummerow	Chris	Dept of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University	USA
Kunkee	David	The Aerospace Corp.	USA
Lagerloef	Gary	President, Earth and Space Research Institute	USA
Lamb	Mark	Northrop Grumman, Los Angeles	USA
Le Vine	David	NASA Goddard SPace Flight Center	USA
Lecompte	Malcolm	ECSU	USA
Li	Li	Naval Research Lab	USA
Lim	Boon	NASA JPL	USA
Limbach	Markus	DLR	Germany
Liou	Yuei-An	Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research, National Central University	Taiwan
Llorente	Álvaro	ESA	Spain
Long	David	Brigham Young University	USA
Lubar	David	Spectrum Management GOES-R Program, The Aerospace Corporation, Denver, Colorado	USA
Maloney	Patricia	The Aerospace Corporation	USA
Mango	Stephen	National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System	USA
Markov	Vladislav	Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology	Russia
Martin-Neira	Manuel	ESA-ESTEC	The Netherlands
Martin-Porqueras	Fernando	IDEAS, ESAC	Spain
Martinez	Justino	Barcelona Expert Center – ICM – CSIC	Spain
McKague	Darren	AOSS Dept, The University of Michigan	USA
Mentzer	James	NOAA – NESDIS/OSD	USA
Miao	Yuanjing	National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences	China
Milani	Luca	Sapienza – University of Rome	Italy
Misra	Sidhart	NASA JPL	USA
Mohammed	Priscilla N.	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center	USA
Narayanan	Ram	Dept of Electrical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University	USA
Natsuaki	Ryo	The University of Toyko	Japan
Nguyen Ngoc	Tie	Hohai University	China
Ogut	Mehmet	NASA JPL/Caltech	USA
Oliva	Roger	ESA	France
Padmanabhan	Sharmila	NASA JPL	USA
Pampaloni	Paolo	Institute of Applied Physics, IFAC-CNR	Italy
Panditrao	Satej	NRSC	India
Park	Hyuk	Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya	Spain
Peichl	Markus	DLR	Germany
Peng	Jinzheng	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center	USA
Periasamy	Lavanya	University of Colorado at Boulder	USA
Piepmeier	Jeff	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center	USA
Pierce	Leland	University of Michigan	USA
Piles	Maria	Universitat de València	Spain
Pla	Jean	CNES	France
Querol	Jorge	Spain
Ramachandran	Nareen
Reising	Steven	Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Colorado State University	USA
Richaume	Philippe	CNES, CESBIO	France
Rincon	Rafael F.	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center	USA
Rommen	Bjorn	ESA, ESTEC	The Netherlands
Rosenkranz	Phil	Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology	USA
Ruf	Chris	AOSS Dept, The University of Michigan	USA
Sagar	Sachin	MyWay Educational Charitable Trust	India
Salam	Abdul	University of Nebraska-Lincoln	USA
Schoenwald	Adam	NASA	USA
Shah	Rashmi	NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory	USA
Shibata	Akira	Remote Sensing Technology Center of Japan, Tsukuba, Japan	Japan
Singh	Gulab	IIT Bombay	India
Siqueira	Paul	University of Massachusetts	USA
Skofronick-Jackson	Gail	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center	USA
Skou	Niels	Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
Smith	Craig	Independent Contractor	Australia
Soebjaerg	Sten	National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark (DTU)	Denmark
Soldo	Yan	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center	USA
Song	Lian	Nanjing Agriculture University	China
St. Germain	Karen	USA
Stefanidis	Konstantinos	NASA HQ Spectrum Management Office	USA
Su	Jia	Northwest Polytechnical University	China
Tanner	Alan	NASA JPL	USA
Tao	Mingliang	Northwestern Polytechnical University	China
Tedesco	Marco	Dept of Earth and Atmospheric Science, City University of New York	USA
Thomas	Ivan	Observatoire de Paris, Station de Radioastronomie	France
Toluwalope	Ogunjo Samuel	Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State	Nigeria
Tristan	Philippe	France
Truesdale	David	Naval Research Lab	USA
Turek	Scott (Robert S.)	Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems	USA
Uranga	Ekhi	ESA	Spain
Ustuner	Mustafa	Yildiz Technical University	Turkey
Venkitasubramony	Aravind	CU Boulder, Dept of ECE	USA
Von Deak	Thomas	consultant	USA
Wang	Tianlin	University of Michigan	USA
Wentz	Frank	President and CEO of Remote Sensing Systems	USA
Wiesbeck	Werner	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	Germany
Williams	Jonathan	US National Science Foundation	USA
Wilson	Bill	Georgia Tech Research Institute	USA
Xu	Xingou	National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences	China
Zauderer	Bevin Ashley	US National Science Foundation	USA
Zhou	Feng	National Laboratory of Radar Signal Processing, Xidian University	China
Zhu	Di	National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences	China
Zuzek	John	NASA Remote Sensing Spectrum Program Manager	USA
kushwaha	sunni kanta prasad	Indian Institute of Technology – Roorkee	India

List of Current and Past Chairs

• 2020–present: Dr. Paolo de Matthaeis / Dr. Roger Oliva / Dr. Tobias Bollian
• 2017–2020: Dr. Paolo de Matthaeis / Dr. Roger Oliva / Dr. Yan Soldo
• 2013–2017: Dr. Sidharth Misra / Dr. Paolo de Matthaeis
• 2011-2013: Dr. William Blackwell / Dr. Ian Adams
• 2007-2009: Dr. Shannon Brown / Dr. Ian Adams
• 2005-2007: Dr. Joel Johnson / Dr. Dave Kunkee & Dr. Shannon Brown
• 2003-2005: Dr. David Kunkee / Dr. David DeBoer
• 2002-2003: Dr. Chris Ruf / Dr. Ram Narayanan
• 2001-2002: Dr. Ram Narayanan / Dr. Chris Ruf
• 2000-2001: Dr. Ram Narayanan

Presentations and minutes from past annual meetings

• FARS 2020 Meeting presentation
• FARS 2020 Meeting minutes
• FARS 2019 Meeting presentation
• FARS 2019 Meeting minutes
• FARS 2017 Meeting presentation
• FARS 2017 Meeting minutes
• FARS 2016 Meeting presentation
• FARS 2016 Meeting minutes
• FARS 2014 Meeting presentation
• FARS 2014 Meeting minutes
• FARS 2013 Meeting presentation
• FARS 2011 Meeting presentation
• FARS 2011 Meeting minutes
• FARS 2009 Meeting presentation
• FARS 2008 Meeting minutes
• FARS 2007 Meeting presentation

Other Recent Meetings

• RFI discussion at MicroRad 2020 Virtual Symposium
  • Minutes of the meeting
  • Presentation slides on “IEEE Standards for RFI Contamination Assessment”
  • Video Recording of the “IEEE Standards for RFI Contamination Assessment” and discussion (starts at 01:09:25)

FARS-related Magazine Articles

• IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Magazine, March 2016
• IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Magazine, June 2014
• IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Magazine, March 2013
• IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Newsletter, June 2005