Ke Tao, China’s remote sensing expert who was ‘devoted’ to national defence, dies at 48

China’s top remote sensing expert Ke Tao died from an illness on Wednesday at the age of 48, according to an obituary from Wuhan University.“Comrade Ke Tao made outstanding achievements in national defence science and technology and remote sensing mapping,” the obituary released on Thursday by the university’s School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering said.Ke, a professor at the school, completed his undergraduate through doctoral degrees there before joining the faculty in 2008.In 2015, as an associate professor, he received a top military scientific advancement award for his research on an unnamed key technology, according to his university profile.Rather than relying on direct physical contact, remote sensing uses technology to observe and analyse phenomena from a distance.Ke’s particular expertise was photogrammetry and its application to aerospace, aviation, and in low-altitude, close-range environments.Photogrammetry is essentially the art of taking measurements from pictures. By looking at how light and patterns appear in a photo, scientists can figure out the size, shape and location of things in the real world.