Infrastructure

The Data Center is composed of an interoperable Big Data storage and a Cloud Computing platform based on open source and freely accessible software technology. It is available for researchers and SME for research projects and operational services like:

• Sentinel Alpine Observatory project
• WEB applications
• True color image mosaic, automatically update when new images with cloud cover less than 30% are acquired

Big Data Storage

Our Big Data Storage has a current capacity of 1,2 Petabyte, it is highly scalable and is built on a software defined storage (SDS) architecture based on open-source Ceph.

Cloud Computing Platform

The platform is managed with open-source OpenNebula on a powerful infrastructure of more than 720 processors (CPUs) and 6.5 Terabyte of RAM. The services can be accessed through various channels with different permissions.

OpenNebula web-user-interface: Allows to create and manage virtual machines based on a quota of computing and storage resources for each user.

The Sensor System Technologies (SST) laboratory, located at the NOI Techpark, is co-managed with the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano and functions as a test centre for developing technologies, creating devices and sensors and designing integrated solutions for monitoring data acquisition. In particular, Sensor System Technologies offers services ranging from the completion and characterisation of devices (sensors, actuators, batteries, energy harvesters, conditioning electronics) based on printing and micro-fabrication technologies to the embedding of these electronic components in integrated solutions and finally, to the development of applications for data access, analysis and sharing. Sensor System Technologies laboratory provides a wide range of users (researchers, public administrations, enterprises) with the necessary solutions and analysis tools for various application areas, such as environmental monitoring, the Internet of Things (IoT) and precision agriculture.

Housed within Sensor System Technologies, the Center for Sensing Solutions specifically focuses on the management of sensing technologies and data infrastructure, services and research activities, and develops, thanks to its researchers and technicians, the following lines of research and services:

• Development and characterisation of prototypes of integrated systems
• Multi-scale and multi-platform data acquisition and integration
• Development, characterisation and validation of prototypes
• Development of IoT prototypes
• Data services: oorganisation, access, processing, sharing, data analysis and quality control
• SW development: implementation and engineering of algorithms, web applications, RESTful APIs
• Data driven decision support systems
• Cloud computing and automation of monitor applications
• Data Integration (multi-sensor)

Main machinery/instruments present in the laboratory:

• Oscilloscopes, Sourcemeter and Power Supply
• Sensors and Transducers for Environmental Monitoring
• Cosmic Ray Neutron Probe
• Data Acquisition/Test/Control Systems
• Data Acquisition Platforms (UAV, Remote Sensing Receiving Station)
• Instruments: high-accuracy GNSS set, Spectroradiometer, Leaf Area Index, RGB/Thermal/Hyperspectral Cameras, Phenocams.
• Wireless Sensor Networks and Connectivity Infrastructure
• IoT Development Platforms
• Climate Chamber
• Spectrum Analyser

Hosted by the Civil Protection of the Autonomous Province of Bozen/Bolzano, the Receiving Station of the Institute for Earth Observation supplies near-real-time (NRT) Earth Observation satellite data for use in a wide variety of remote sensing applications. The station, financed by the Province of Bozen/Bolzano, supports the acquisition of optical and radar data.

Since March 2009, NASA missions Aqua and Terra have been transmitting images of Europe to the EURAC Ground Segment, and since February 2012, the NASA mission Suomi-NPP has been added to the daily mission scheduler. A sophisticated data processing and storage infrastructure with a state-of-the-art redundancy system assures fast, reliable access to NRT and archived data. Our aim is to provide our users with high-quality remotely-sensed images at all levels of the processing chain.

We have a portfolio of earth observation products, ranging from simple satellite images to more complex remote sensing applications such as change detection, land-use and land-cover classification, snow cover maps, project-specific monitoring, and analysis services.