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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Daily Overview

Session

Biomass First Results IV
Location: Red Hall
Session Chair: Konstantinos Papathanassiou, German Aerospace Center, DLR e.V.
Session Chair: Klaus Scipal, European Space Agency

Presentation 5

12:30pm - 12:50pm

The Biomass Product Algorithm Laboratory (PAL): A Collaborative and Experimental Environment for Algorithm Development, Processing and Data Analytics within the ESA MAAP Framework

Erminia De Grandis¹, Alessandro Marin¹, Francesco Cantavenera¹, Roberto Alacevich², Cristiano Lopes², Saskia Brose², Clement Albinet², Francesco Ferrante³, Benedetta Antonielli³, Joseph Melizza³

1: CGI Italia, Frascati, Italy; 2: European Space Agency (ESA), ESRIN, Frascati, Italy; 3: Serco Italia, Rome, Italy

The Product Algorithm Laboratory (PAL) for Biomass mission represents a key asset of the European Space Agency’s Multi-Mission Algorithm and Analysis Platform (ESA MAAP), a cloud-based platform that enables the processing and analysis of Earth observation data across multiple missions.

The PAL is built on CGI’s Insula platform, an advanced environment for Earth Observation (EO) data analytics that combines cutting-edge, production-ready technologies to deliver a flexible and interoperable cloud framework. This infrastructure underpins the ESA MAAP environment, currently supporting the Biomass and EarthCARE missions, while ensuring security, scalability, and efficient orchestration of processing services for a seamless and reliable user experience.

The Biomass MAAP enables scientists and developers to experiment with prototype algorithms, process large-scale mission data, and perform advanced analytical workflows in a shared, scalable, and reproducible infrastructure.

The PAL integrates direct access to the Biomass mission products, auxiliary datasets, and related validation data and provides scalable computing resources. It allows researchers to deploy and execute custom processing chains without managing underlying infrastructure. This capability fosters an iterative approach to algorithm refinement, from prototyping to pre-operational qualification.

Within this environment, researchers can perform comparative studies across multiple algorithm versions or missions, conduct sensitivity analyses to assess the impact of input parameters and assumptions, and perform advanced visualizations and analytics to better interpret data and algorithm behavior.

These capabilities promote knowledge exchange, algorithm harmonization and interoperability across missions, supporting the development of consistent and scientifically robust products within the ESA MAAP where tools, datasets, and users interact efficiently to empower EO data analysis.

By combining collaboration and experimentation, the PAL creates a framework that bridges scientific research and operational implementation, accelerating EO algorithm innovation and ensuring readiness for operational exploitation within ESA’s upcoming missions.

Importantly, the Biomass PAL is fully operational and open to researchers and developers, providing direct access to mission data and computing resources within a ready-to-use environment.