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Biomass Processing Suite (BPS)

Introduction

Biomass Processing Suite (BPS) is the operational processing system developed for the ESA Biomass Mission. BPS is designed to transform raw satellite observations acquired by the Biomass mission into calibrated and scientifically usable geophysical products that support the study of global forest ecosystems and the Earth’s carbon cycle.

Within this context, the purpose of BPS is to provide an end-to-end operational framework for generating Level-1, Level-2, and Level-3 products from Biomass SAR acquisitions. These products include calibrated SAR imagery, interferometric and polarimetric measurements, forest disturbance indicators, forest height estimates, and global above-ground biomass maps.

The suite has been developed to support systematic, large-scale, and repeatable processing of Biomass mission data, enabling scientists, researchers, and operational users to access consistent Earth observation products for environmental monitoring and climate research.

The processing foresees the following steps:

  • L1 Processing: the BIOMASS image formation step, taking in input 1 L0 slice and generating in output N>=1 L1 frames;
  • Stack Processing: the coregistration and stacking processing step that will define the required 7-images Tomographic stacks or the 3 images Interferometric stacks. It includes stack phase calibration;
  • L2a Processing: processing step for each stack that provides the inputs to the further products Tile Generation performed by the L2b processors. For one global cycle the number of stacks varies mainly with latitude, approximately from a minimum of two at the Equator (ascending/descending) to about six at higher latitudes (three ascending/descending pairs);
  • L2b Processing: processing that aggregates all the stack-based L2a products insisting on the same location on ground (Tile) in the same time interval and generates a single BIOMASS L2b product. A different number of stacks may be available for each DGG tile, based on tile dimensions and swath coverage (which is not related to DGG tiling pattern);
  • L3 Processing: consolidation processing removing discontinuities in L2b products.

An additional processing tool is provided as part of BPS, i.e., the L1 Framing one, which is in charge of computing the L1 frames start and stop times needed to trigger the L1 processing step.

How to Run the BPS on PAL

Currently, you have three ways of using the BPS within PAL:

  1. By using pre-compiled notebooks in Coding
  2. By running a processor in Processing
  3. By using Podman within a dedicated Coding image

Only those users belonging to the "BPS" group can access the BPS dedicated image in Coding

In the following, you will address the differences between the three methods.

Running the BPS in Coding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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