GEOSatDB: global civil earth observation satellite semantic database

Abstract

ABSTRACT Satellite remote sensing, characterized by extensive coverage, frequent revisits, and continuous monitoring, provides essential data support for addressing global challenges. Over the past six decades, thousands of Earth observation satellites and sensors have been deployed worldwide. These valuable Earth observation assets are contributed independently by various nations and organizations employing diverse methodologies. This poses a significant challenge in effectively discovering global Earth observation resources and realizing their full potential. In this paper, we describe the development of GEOSatDB, the most complete semantic database of civil Earth observation satellites developed based on a unified ontology model. A similarity matching method is used to integrate satellite information and a prompt strategy is used to extract unstructured sensor information. The resulting semantic database contains 127,949 semantic statements for 2,340 remote sensing satellites and 1,021 observation sensors. The global Earth observation capabilities of 195 countries worldwide have been analyzed in detail, and a concrete use case along with an associated query demonstration is presented. This database provides significant value in effectively facilitating the semantic understanding and sharing of Earth observation resources.