Understanding Non-optical Remote-sensed Images: Needs, Challenges and Ways Forward

Non-optical remote-sensed images are going to be used more often in man- aging disaster, crime and precision agriculture. With more small satellites and unmanned air vehicles planning to carry radar and hyperspectral image sensors there is going to be an abundance of such data in the recent future. Understanding these data in real-time will be crucial in attaining some of the important sustain- able development goals. Processing non-optical images is, in many ways, different from that of optical images. Most of the recent advances in the domain of image understanding has been using optical images. In this article we shall explain the needs for image understanding in non-optical domain and the typical challenges. Then we shall describe the existing approaches and how we can move from there to the desired goal of a reliable real-time image understanding system.