The German armed forces will use Airbus Defence and Space’s TanDEM-X mission data to update its Digital Elevation Model (DEM) under an agreement announced on 24 November.
The TanDEM-X Digital Elevation Model is used to interpret landscapes in high detail for military applications such as engineering projects and operational planning. The 3D nature of the data provides a visualisation tool to aid surveillance, reconnaissance, and planning such as the mapping of obstacles, line of sight estimation and flight path/possible landing site planning.
The agreement includes licences for the utilisation of the global elevation data set covering the 150 Mio km² of the Earth’s landmass, and support services for data-management and data-editing, helping to access, edit, store and disseminate the data. Additional support and training will also be provided.
Airbus Defence and Space markets the TanDEM-X Digital Elevation Model data under the name of WorldDEM and has developed a dedicated software tool for the adaptation of the elevation data to the needs of military and commercial users worldwide.