The AVHRR sensor on the NOAA satellites, providing data at 1.1 and 4 km spatial resolutions, is ideally 
suited for routine and cost- effective monitoring of vegetation development over large areas, such as the desert 
locust invasion area, extending from the West African Coast to North-West India and from Turkey to Tanzania 
as well as the continental scales of the FAO Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS). 
The NOAA AVHRR based vegetation monitoring technique, developed and tested by NASA GSFC in 
cooperation with the FAO Remote Sensing Centre was implemented on the operational ARTEMIS system 
(Hielkema et al. 1986a). 
NOAA AVHRR data is operationally available at 4 km resolution on a global basis from the National Oceanic 
an Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the U.S.A. The full 1.1 km resolution data can be obtained from 
regional direct readout receiving stations as established in Maspalomas, Canary Islands, Spain; Niamey, Niger; 
Nairobi, Kenya and Islamabad, Pakistan. 
4. ARTEMIS System Characteristics 
The ARTEMIS system, which became operational at the Remote Sensing Centre at FAO Headquarters in 
August 1988, was conceived and developed as a highly automated, dedicated satellite data acquisition, thematic 
processing and production system, based on the use of high-frequency Meteosat and NOAA AVHRR data. 
It consists of a number of integrated hardware and software components, which are summarized as follows (van 
Ingen Schenau et al. 1986). 
(a) Hardware 
(i) A Meteosat Primary Data User Station (PDUS) for direct, automated reception of high frequency 
(hourly), full resolution digital Meteosat data in the visible, thermal infrared and water vapour 
channels through a three-metre dish antenna, down converter and receiver. The PDUS is 
controlled by a dedicated VME 68000 microprocessor and stores data on two 150 Mb disks 
before transfer of data through an ethernet link to the central system computer for mapping and 
thematic processing. 
(ii) A computer unit consisting of a Hewlett-Packard 1000 A900 minicomputer, supported by a 
high-speed 6250/1600 bpi tape drive, three disks (132,404 and 571 Mb), a clock, a system console, 
a printer and a modem. The system is presently being expanded with a second tape drive, an 
optical disk drive and additional memory for the HP 1000 A900. 
(iii) An interactive image analysis workstation, consisting of a Ramtek interface to the HP 1000 A900 
with a 1,280 x 1,024 x 16 bit display memory, a 19-inch high-resolution colour monitor, a graphics 
terminal with touch screen capability, trackball and a printer. 
(iv) An output system, consisting of a hard colour copy camera for 10 x 15 inch 
Polaroid and 35 mm film products, an HP Vectra microcomputer for IBM PC and ERDAS 
compatible output on floppy disk, the 6250/1600 bpi tape drive and a six-pen colour plotter. 
Colour and B/W laser process are being installed. 
The ARTEMIS system hardware was further expanded with a multisync colour monitor and a matrox graphics 
card. This added capability allowed the operation of the Integrated Land and Water Information System 
(ILWIS) geographic information system software package, which was developed by the International Institute 
for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences (ITC) (Meijerink et al. 1988) and implemented on the system in 
December 1988 for combination and manipulation of ARTEMIS digital data products with data from other 
sources. 
ARTEMIS remote terminal connections within FAO headquarters, through dedicated lines, linked to 
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