This session is aimed at presenting the state of art and novel instrumentation, sensing techniques, as well as data processing approaches to support the archaeological research and Cultural Heritage conservation strategies.
As well known, for the correct management of the architectural and archaeological heritages an exhaustive knowledge of their status is necessary; such information stands not only in the identification of the building features, but also in the localization of the causes of damages and of their nature and extent. Furthermore, in many cases monitoring of the structure and the surface is required, in order to foresee the degradation temporal behaviour.
In this field, in the recent years there is an increasing interesting on non-destructive and non invasive geophysical test methods that also allow to overcome the subjectivity arising in the choice of the number and the positions where to perform the destructive tests. Thus, the non invasive techniques are able to give a global vision of the heritage:
In addition, very recently large attention is posed to the integration of the classical geophysical techniques with new emerging surface and subsurface sensing techniques (optical sensors, thermography, acoustics) for a multi depth, multi-resolution, multi-scale monitoring.

Therefore, the sessions will be concerned with:

a) the state of art and progress of the geophysical techniques (magnetic, self-potential, ERT, GPR, EMI, VLF,…) in the framework of the Cultural Heritages diagnostics and archaeological prospecting with a focus on the novelty of the instrumentation and data acquisition/processing techniques as well as on the presentation of experimentations/applications of high cultural interest and/or of challenging scientific interest;
b) the state of art of new emerging surface and subsurface sensing techniques based on the exploitation of less explored band of the electromagnetic spectrum as well as
c) The presentation of approaches based on the integration of geophysical techniques (GPR, magnetic, DC, etc.), stress wave tests (sonic and ultrasonic) and infrared thermography for the conservation and the study of building features of monuments and artefacts.
d) Lidar data, hyperspectral and multispectral airborne and satellite imagery : data processing issues and applications for archaeological research and cultural heritage management.
e) The presentation of approaches able to perform an integration/combination of the different sensing techniques with the aim of a fusion of observations at different spatial, time and resolution levels (underground sensors, surface measurements, remote pilot vehicle and satellite surveys) for the archaeological research and cultural heritage management.