Dr. Robertus Heru Triharjanto

Head of the Research Organization of Aeronautics and Space, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN)

Synthetic Aperture Radar Research and Applications in Indonesia

With about 3 million km2 of territorial water and 2 million km2 of land, having located between two continents and to oceans, and having tropical weather, Indonesia, is in urgent needs for high quantity SAR remote sensing data. Law enforcement in maritime domain, from illegal fishing, transshipment/smuggling, and oil pollution, needs high revisit SAR satellite system. Crop estimations, to ensure high validity data of harvest predictions, that crucial for the socioeconomic of the nation, also need extensive satellite-based SAR data due to cloud coverage more than half of the year. Environmental degradations, such as land subsidence that happen in part of Indonesia’s most populous island, are another problem that needs monitoring system based on SAR data. The speech will present the development of SAR satellite remote sensing applications for public services in Indonesia. It will also present the plan for near-equatorial SAR satellite constellation, to ensure the availability of SAR data for such applications. The development of indigenous SAR technology will also be presented to promote international and
national collaborations.