Data Analytics

Data integration allows a unified access to distributed heterogeneous data sets. The data integration projects at the i4Ds are in the context of virtual observatories (VO), which enable the search and the unified access to astronomical or solar data from different observatories. The institute is involved in international research projects and assumes the responsibility in the technical implementation of some of the projects.

With data reduction we try to extract information out of raw data and to handle it in such a way that it makes the data more understandable and usable. We deal in our projects with the development of data processing pipelines for telescopes in the domains of astrophysics and heliophysics. We are involved in international research projects where we design and implement pipeline frameworks. In addition, we work on the implementation of numeric methods in individual processing stages of a pipeline. You can find more information in the research group Astroinformatics.

In both areas we work with methods of data visualization, efficient data selection and data mining as well as secure data storage.

Furthermore, we are leading with the Heliophysics group the setting and operation of the X-ray detector STIX for the ESA spacecraft Solar Orbiter. Here too, data management plays a central role. We build a data centre where the measurements of STIX are processed, stored and provided to the scientific community. For these tasks, all the competences of the research field Data Management are important: Secure storage, robust processing, deep analysis of the data with modern, intelligent data analysis methods as well as the publication of these with VO technology.

More about Heliophysics...

More about Astroinformatics...

The RHESSI satellite records solar flares, but with very little data. To restore how a flare originally looked like, image reconstruction algorithms are needed. We are actively developing such an algorithm, based on the Compressed Sensing technology. More...

The x-ray telescope STIX is one of ten instruments on board the ESA-mission Solar Orbiter. It has been developed and constructed at FHNW in cooperation with industrial partners. More...

The European project FLARECAST aims at developing a fully automated and openly accessible solar flare forecasting system. FLARECAST will both revamp solar flare prediction and contribute to a better understanding of the drivers of flare activity at the Sun. More...

Herschel is the largest imaging telescope, which has ever been built for space. Its mirror, which is 3.5 m in diameter, observes cold and far away objects of the universe to study the origin of stars and galaxies. The i4Ds develops the software to analyse the obtained complex data. More...

The FHNW develops a tool for the ESA-satellite Euclid to distribute and process the data, which the satellite collects. With this tool, scientists are able to connect their algorithms with the datasets from the satellite and let them be processed on one of the available datacenters. More...

The international project Dark Energy Survey revolves around the origin of the accelerating expansion of the universe. With our software engineering know-how we supported the Data Management Team at NCSA (USA), which is responsible for the data processing (including images of 570 mega pixels in size). More...