SATELLITE IMAGE-PROCESSING SYSTEM UTILIZING AN EXTENDED CELLULAR ARRAY PROCESSOR

Since its successful launch in February of 1992, the Japan Earth Resou rces Satellite-1 (JERS-1) has been sending back high resolution images of the earth for various studies, including the investigation of eart h resources, the preservation of environments and the observation of c oastal lines. Currently, received images are processed using the Earth Resources Satellite Data Information System (ERSDIS). The ERSDIS is a high speed image processing system utilizing an extended cellular arr ay processor as its main processing module. The extended cellular arra y processor (CAP), consisting of 4096 processing elements configured i nto a two-dimensional array, is designed to have many parallel process ing optimizing capabilities targetting large-scale image processing at a high speed. This paper describes a typical image processing flow, t he structure of the ERSDIS, and the details of the CAP design.