Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2012
For space weather applications, it is important to understand filaments evolution and especially their eruptions associated with coronal mass ejections. In view of the cadence and continuity of SDO observations, AIA and HMI offer a unique tool for such a program. Because of the data volume and the requirement of short latency, only an automated detection can be worked out. We present a new method for the automated detection and tracking of filaments, based on the analysis of AIA 30.4 nm He ii images, with the capability to use also the magnetic field measured by HMI.