Prof. Dr. Armin Gruen was since 1984 Professor and Head of the Chair of  Photogrammetry at the Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry, Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland. Since 1 August 2009 he is retired and is now with the Institute of Conservation and Building Research, Department of Architecture, ETH Zurich. Currently he is acting as a Principal Investigator on the Simulation Platform of the SEC-FCL (Singapore ETH Centre - Future Cities Laboratory) in Singapore.

He graduated 1968 as Dipl.-Ing. in Geodetic Science and obtained his doctorate degree 1974 in Photogrammetry, both from the Technical University Munich, Germany. From 1969 to 1975 he worked as Research and Teaching Associate, and until 1981 as Chief Engineer at the Institute of Photogrammetry and Cartography, Technical University Munich. From 1981 to 1984 he acted as Associate Professor at the Department of Geodetic Science and Surveying, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA.

Prof. Gruen has held lecturing and research assignments at various Universities and Research facilities in Germany, Italy, Finland, Netherlands, USA, Australia, Taiwan, China.

He is Member of the Editorial Boards of several scientific journals. He has published more than 500 articles and papers and is Editor and Co-editor of over 21 books and Conference Proceedings. He has organized and co-organized/co-chaired over thirtyfive international conferences and he has served as a consultant to various government agencies, system manufacturers and engineering firms in Germany, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, USA and other countries. He is co-founder of CyberCity AG, Zurich and 4DiXplorer AG, Zurich, Switzerland.

He served as the President of ISPRS Commission V (ISPRS...International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing), as ISPRS Council Member (Second Vice President) and Council Member of IUSM (International Union of Surveys and Mapping) and as Chairman of the ISPRS Financial Commission. He was Chairman of the ISPRS International Scientific Advisory Committee (ISAC) and the ISPRS Ad-hoc Committee on “Knowledge Transfer”, International Member of the Fourth Academic Committee of the State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing (LIESMARS), Wuhan University, China, Member of the First Academic Committee of the Key Laboratory of Mapping from Space of the Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping (CASM), Beijing, China and Member of the Executive Board of the Digital Earth Society, Member of the International Expert Committee for Strategic Development of CEODE (Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Beijing.
His major international awards and honors include the Otto von Gruber Gold Medal (ISPRS,1980), Talbert Abrams Award Grand Trophy (ASPRS, 1985 and 1995), with Honorable Mention 1989, Fairchild Award (ASPRS, 1994), Miegunyah Distinguished Fellowship Award of the University of Melbourne, 1999, ISPRS U.V. Helava Award 2000, E.H. Thompson Award 2005, ISPRS Brock Gold Medal Award 2008, Dr. Boon Indrabarya Gold Medal Award 2009, Yuri Gagarin Medal 2014.

He is Corresponding Member of the German Geodetic Commission, Munich, Ordinary Member of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), Honorary Professor of the Wuhan University, Wuhan, China and Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, China, Honorary Member of the Japan Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Fellow Professor at the Center for Space and Remote Sensing Research, National Central University, Jhongli City, Taiwan, Visiting Chair Professor National Cheng Kung University, Department of Geomatics, Tainan, Taiwan,and Honorary Member of ISPRS.

As Principal Investigator on the Simulation Platform of the SEC-FCL (Future Cities Laboratory, www.futurecities.ethz.ch) project he is currently mainly involved in Smart City applications of 3D/4D city models, including the generation and updating of those models from high-resolution satellite and UAV images.

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Deren Li is an expert in photogrammetry and remote sensing. He was selected as a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1991 and a member of Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1994. He got his bachelor and master degrees from Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping respectively in 1963 and 1981. In 1985, he got his doctor degree from University of Stuttgart, Germany. He was awarded the title of honorary doctor from ETH Zürich, Switzerland in 2008.

Deren Li has concentrated on the research and education in spatial information science and technology represented by remote sensing (RS), global positioning systems (GPS) and geographic information systems (GIS). During his studies in Germany since 1982, Deren Li proposed a new iteration weighted method for gross error location based on a posterior variance estimation, which has since been named “Deren Li Method". In 1985, he completed theoretical research in the separability of model errors, which advanced the reliability theory of Dutch scientists to the separability phase. His theory has “scientifically solved a hundred-year-baffling problem in geodetic science". Deren Li has successfully supervised the studies of over 80 MSc candidates and over 100 PhD candidates and has published over 600 papers and 11 books. He has won many national and ministerial level prizes, such as The Sci-tech Progress Award, National Excellent Textbook Award, Award of the Excellent Educational Achievements, etc.

He has served successively as the President of Wuhan Technical University of Surveying and Mapping, Director of Wuhan University Academic Board, Director of the National Laboratory for Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Vice-President of Hubei Provincial Science and Technology Association. He is the standing member of Division of Earth Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Vice-Director of National Major Scientific Project “"High Resolution Earth Observation System”, member of Sixth Science Committee and Strategic Research Conuncil under Ministry of Education, member of National 973 Expert Advisory Group, member of Chinese Post-doc Expert Committee, member of National Space Expert, member of National Remote Sensing Center, member of European and American Alumni Association, President of European and American Alumni Association in Wuhan, Vice- President of China Society of Image and Graphics, Expert Advisor to China GIS Association, Vice-President of Chinese Society of Surveying and Mapping, Chief Scientist of China Center for Resources Satellite Data and Application, Senior Consultant to the China Global Positioning System Technology and Application Society, Founding President of Asia GIS Society, the third and sixth President of Professional Board of International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing,member of the Euro-Asia International Academy of Sciences, Consultant or Honorary Professor of over 50 universities.

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Shunji Murai born in 1939 in Tokyo, Japan had been Professor, Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo from 1983 to 2000. He is now Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo as well as President, Japan Association of Surveyors since 2007. He served Council Member of International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) for 16 years since 1984 including President 1992-1996. He contributed himself to Japan Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (JSPRS) as President 2000-2012. His profession is digital photogrammetry, remote sensing, satellite positioning, GIS etc. Recently he is concentrating into his research on the prediction of earthquakes using GNSS data as an advisor, Japan Earthquake Science Explosion Agency (JESEA). He conducted Asian Conference on Remote Sensing for 30 years since 1980 as General Secretary, Asian Association on Remote Sensing (AARS) until 2009. Currently he is Honorary Member of ISPRS, AARS and JSPRS. He is Honorary Doctor, ETH, Switzerland and Honorary Professor, Wuhan University, China.

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Peng Gong received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in geography from Nanjing University, Nanjing, China, in 1984 and 1986, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in geography from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 1990.
He was a Research Scientist with the Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science, North York, ON, Canada, and an Assistant Professor with the Department of Geomatics Engineering, University of Calgary, AB, Canada, before joining the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, in 1994, where he became a Full Professor in 2001. He was the Advisor to the Ministry of Science and Technology of China in 2004–2006, the Founding Director of the International Institute for Earth System Science, Nanjing University, between 2000 and 2007 and the Founding Director of the State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China, between 2004 and 2010. He became the Director of the Center for Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, in 2010. He has authored/coauthored six books and more than 400 articles in the field of remote sensing, geography, and environmental science. His present interest is remote sensing, global environmental change and public health.

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Prof. Huadong Guo is Director-General of the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), an Academician of CAS, a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS), and an Academician of International Eurasian Academy of Sciences. He presently serves as President of the International Council for Science (ICSU) Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), Secretary-General of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE), and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Digital Earth (IJDE) published by Taylor & Francis. He has over thirty years of experience in remote sensing, specializing in radar for Earth observation and remote sensing applications, and involving research on digital Earth since the end of the last century. He has been Principle Investigator for over twenty major national projects or programs in China, and Principle Investigator for seven international radar remote sensing projects. He also serves as Director of the International Center on Space Technologies for Natural and Cultural Heritage under the Auspices of UNESCO. He has published more than three-hundred papers and fifteen books, and is the principal awardee of thirteen national and CAS prizes, one being “National Outstanding Expert”, awarded by the State Council of China.

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Dr. Bo Huang is a Professor with the Department of Geography and Resource Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he is also the Associate Director of Institute of Space and Earth Information Science and the Director of MSc Program in GeoInformation Science. Prior to this, he held faculty positions at University of Calgary (Geomatics Engineering), Canada and National University of Singapore (Civil Engineering). His research interests are broad, covering most aspects of Geographical Information Science (GIScience), specifically: satellite image fusion for environmental monitoring, spatial/spatio-temporal statistics for land cover/land use change modeling, spatial optimization for sustainable urban and land use planning, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), and web/wireless GIS for location-based services. Dr. Huang has published extensively in the field of GIScience, including over 100 refereed international journal articles, and serves as Executive Editor of Annals of GIS (Taylor & Francis) and Regional Editor of International Journal of Geographical Information Science (Taylor & Francis). Currently he is exploring along the line of precision remote sensing, convinced that this new paradigm will revolutionize the way how remote sensing data are integrated, analyzed and utilized in the future.

The recent decades have witnessed the launch of a large number of orbiting satellite sensors with different spatial, temporal, spectral, and angular (STSA) characteristics, resulting in dramatic improvements in the ability to acquire images of the earth surface and a boom in remote sensing (RS) applications in environmental, ecological, and disaster monitoring. However, current RS technology is insufficient in monitoring a dense and dynamic urban environment with complex structures and changes that require high spatial detail, frequent coverage, fine spectral resolution, and multi-angle observation. This is largely due to the fact that there is no satellite sensor that can achieve simultaneously high STSA resolution. Unified satellite image fusion aims to circumvent this obstacle by achieving high resolution with respect to all the image properties for a virtual satellite sensor. The generated high STSA resolution imagery can greatly contribute to the exploration and improvement of existing satellite image resources for urban environmental applications by detecting more details in a more accurate manner. This presentation will introduce the methods and processes developed for unified satellite image fusion using sparse representation and dictionary learning. Comparisons with other relevant methods will also be covered to demonstrate the superiority of our algorithms. The proposed unified satellite image methods and algorithms can be applied to the areas that have benefited from the traditional RS technologies with an improved data availability and accuracy. Demonstrative applications will include the generation of daily land surface temperature and aerosol concentration.

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Edwin Lai received the B.Sc degree in Environmental Sciences from University of Lancaster, UK, and the M.Sc degree in Meteorology from University of Reading, HK. He joined the Hong Kong Observatory as Scientific Officer in 1986, promoted to Senior Scientific Officer in 1998, and then Assistant Director in 2012. His previous working experiences include operational forecasting, tropical cyclone analysis and research, development of operational forecasting systems (including numerical weather prediction and nowcasting systems), and public weather services (including more than 20 years as presenter in TV weather programmes). He is a member of World Meteorological Organization (WMO) expert teams in Public Weather Services since late 1990s. He was formerly Chair of WMO Regional Association II Working Group on Disaster Risk Reduction and Service Delivery and Chair of Training and Research Coordination Group under the UNESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee. He is currently Chair of Advisory Working Group under the UNESCAP/WMO Typhoon Committee; member of WMO Commission of Climatology and Intergovernmental Board on Climate Services. He is a fellow of Hong Kong Meteorological Society, a fellow and Chartered Meteorologist (since 2005) of the Royal Meteorological Society.

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As an ocean remote sensing expert of China, Prof. Pan was elected to be academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2001. He is professor of State Key Laboratory of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics (SOED) in Second Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration (SIO, SOA), vice chairman of Chinese Society of Oceanography, Editor-in-Chief of Acta Oceanologica Sinica, expert of International Ocean color coordinating Group (IOCCG).
After graduating from Nanjing University of Science and Technology in 1968, he has been engaged in satellite ocean remote sensing research in SIO, SOA. He did the cooperative research and lecturing related to remote sensing in Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea and other countries in the long term. He is one of the founders of Chinese ocean remote sensing science and technology development, due to his outstanding  contribution to development of ocean color  satellite remote sensing in version algorithm, satellite remote sensing application technology, and radiation simulation theory.

The honor he had won including that, once the Remote Sensing Achievement Award of International Optical Engineering Society; once the National Scientific and Technological Progress Special Prize, once the Second Prize; once the provincial Science and Technology Progress Grand Prize, five times the First Progress Prize.

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Dr. Ing. Fabio Rocca is Emeritus Professor of Telecommunications at the Politecnico di Milano. His research activities have been dedicated to digital signal processing in television bandwidth compression where he introduced in 1968 the technique of motion compensation, in single photon emission tomography, in seismic data processing and since 1983 in Synthetic Aperture Radar where he is currently working on the design of bistatic and geosynchronous SAR systems, on the use of Permanent Scatterers for long term SAR interferometry, new SCANSAR methodologies, Polarimetric Tomography, and on airborne radar systems. Since 2004 Prof. Rocca has been part of the Dragon program, a joint research program in Remote Sensing sponsored by the European Space Agency and by NRSCC.

He is Past President of the EAEG, Honorary Member of the SEG and of the EAGE, Eduard Rhein Preis for Technology 1999, Doctor Honoris Causa in Geophysics by the Institut Polytechnique de Lorraine, 2001, Erasmus Award from EAGE, 2009, 2012 ENI Prize for New Frontiers for Hydrocarbons, Chinese Government International Scientific Technological Cooperation Award for 2014.

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Dr. DanLing TANG is a Professor of South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She is an expert on remote sensing of marine ecosystems and the environments, and her research interests include phytoplankton blooms and typhoon impacts on marine ecosystems. She proposed a conceptual model of “Wind-pumped –nutrients—subtropical Marine Ecosystem”. She has serviced for a few of international scientific organizations, including: the President of the Pan Ocean Remote Sensing Association (PORSEC), the President (elect) of PACON International, Councilor of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and Vice Chair of COASPAR-A2 committee. Her achievements led to the development of a new interdisciplinary “Remote Sensing Marine Ecology” (RSME) concept. For her scientific achievements and contributions, she was awarded “Zayed Award Diploma" (UNEP), and “Ocean Service Awards” (PACON), and “Distinguishing Member Award” (PACON). Her homepage: http://lingzis.51.net/.

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Yeqiao Wang is currently a professor in terrestrial remote sensing at the Department of Natural Resources Science, University of Rhode Island. He received his M.S. degree in remote sensing and mapping from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1987, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in natural resources management & engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1992 and 1995, respectively. Dr. Wang was on the faculty of University of Illinois at Chicago between 1995 and 1999 before coming to University of Rhode Island. Dr. Wang has held adjunct positions at various universities and research institutions and he is among selected scholars of the recruitment program of global experts and a Yangtze River scholar lecturing Professor in China. Among his awards and recognitions Dr. Wang was a recipient of NASA New Investigator Award in 1999 and Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) by President William J. Clinton in 2000. His specialties are in remote sensing and modeling in natural resources analysis and monitoring. Besides his peer reviewed publications he authored and edited multiple books including Remote Sensing of Coastal Environments (CRC Press, 2009) and Remote Sensing of Protected Lands (CRC Press, 2011). Dr. Wang serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Taylor and Francis Group’s Encyclopedia of Natural Resources, a multi-volume set under the themes of Land, Air and Water. His funded research projects include study areas in Eastern and Midwestern United States, East and West Africa, and Northeast and Central China.

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