News

IGiG scientific seminar - Dr. Milad Asgarimehr

20-01-2026

Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics kindly invites you to a scientific seminar entitled "GNSS Reflectometry with AI for Multivariate Earth Monitoring”, Dr. Milad Asgarimehr, Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences GFZ, Potsdam, Germany.

The seminar will take place in the IGiG library, room 100G, Building C1, on January 22, 2026, at 10:00 a.m.

All interested are warmly welcome.


GNSS Reflectometry with AI for Multivariate Earth Monitoring

GNSS Reflectometry (GNSS-R) is a passive radar technique that repurposes signals from navigation satellites to monitor the Earth’s surface at low cost and with high temporal frequency. This study presents recent advances showing how GNSS-R, combined with modern AI, can deliver improved environmental monitoring across oceans, land, and forests. Over oceans, AI-enhanced GNSS-R provides more accurate wind-speed retrievals, including during heavy rain and extreme events such as Hurricane Laura (2020). On land, it yields high-quality soil moisture estimates. We also show how GNSS-R enables forest water stress monitoring, capturing sub-daily moisture dynamics that conventional sensors miss. We further introduce a self-supervised, generalist GNSS-R framework capable of retrieving multiple geophysical variables from a single model with reduced training data requirements. These developments demonstrate the growing potential of AI-driven GNSS-R as a next-generation Earth observation capability for environmental monitoring and early-warning systems.

Biogram

Dr. Milad Asgarimehr is a researcher at the Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences GFZ in Potsdam, specializing in Earth remote sensing with a particular focus on Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R). He earned his doctorate with highest distinction from the Technical University of Berlin in 2020.

His research spans the physics of bistatic radar, geophysical signal analysis, and AI-driven remote sensing. His work has been recognized with the Bernd Rendel Prize from the German Research Foundation, awarded for originality across all geodisciplines, as well as several competitive fellowships enabling research collaborations with the German Aerospace Center, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Asgarimehr currently leads Helmholtz AI projects at GFZ and contributes to international scientific coordination, including as Chair of working groups within the International Association of Geodesy and the Global Geodetic Observing System on GNSS-R and AI for GNSS remote sensing.