Marine - Environmental Optics Laboratories & Remote Sensing Center
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We all like to know about the people associated or behind the services they are considering, whether it is educational, research or industrial & commercial.

Below is presented the background of the Laboratories and the Center.

Environmental Optics Laboratories

The first laboratory was established in the fall of 1992 at Florida Institue of Technology (Florida Tech or FIT), College of Engineering. We began with the support of the Office of Sponsored Research, when we rennovated the Enironmental Sciences Lab to deveop this new research, education and industrial/commercial focus. Today we have several laboratories on the campus as well as off campus locations to support our research, education and industrial/commercial partnerships. To date we have consulted and provided services to defense contractors, NASA Centers, and NASA subcontractors, Department of Energy (DOE) and subcontractors, KB Science, the State of Florida water management agencies, the Department of State and foreign educational institutions/organizations in the EU and the Northrop Grumman Corporation, We have also recieved funding from private foundations, including the Link Foundation.

Current Projects include funding from the Florida Institute of Oceanogrpahy - BP Research Funds for Airborne Imaging of Gulf of Mexico Waters. This project will involve the collection of Hyperspectral Imagery, Photogrammetric Engineering Film Imagery, Digital and HD Video imagery in selected coastal areas in the Gulf of Mexico. Key to this effort is the utilization of high spatial and spectral resolution imagery.

Other research funded by the US government and the European Union (EU) involves utilizing our imagery for development of "data fusion & sharpening" of hyperspectral imagery using multispectral digital and scanned multichannel imagery obtained simultaeneouslly from other sensors and sesnor data at various altitudes and at different times. The goal of the research is to improve the estimation of geophysical variables estiamted from airborne imagery. The Hyperspectral Imaging Sysytem (HSI) has been developed by Dr. Bostater.

Remote Sensing Center

The Remote Sensing Center began in 1992 and we started our research in hyperspectral data collection and the analysis of AVHRR, Landsat TM and SPOT imagery of theIndian River Lagoon and The Srace Coast Region of Central Florida. Our mission statement or purpose of the center has been to educate as well as conduct research and applications of remote sensing in water and land in the subtropical waters of Florida. More recentrly we have extended our activities into airborne hyperspectral data collection and analysis as well as data collection protocol analysis. We have also conducted research and instrument design and applications in laser imaging of the water surface and shallow water bottom types. These activities within the center and the lab have resulted in the development of computer models based upon analytical solutions to sets of differential equations and iterative solutions to radiative transfer of light in homogeneous and layer environmental media (water, vegetation, atmosphere). We have also developed state of the art analytical and Monte Carlo models of the radiative transfer processes or "hydrologic optics" for passive and active "synthetic image generation of the water surface" based upon the scientifically based image chain approach. In essence we simulate the images of the water surface as affected by water quality, different bottom types as well as by water surface waves.
 
Our synthetic image radiative transfer modeling makes use of high performance computing technologies. The synthetic image modeling - combined with airborne instrument developmenet in hyperspectral imaging systems (HSI) , makes our lab and center the only one of it's kind in North America for generating state of art remote sensing algorithms based upon modern radiative transfer theory and associated imaging spectroscopy.

Dr. Charles Bostater
321-258-9134