GMV – A Global Company for a Borderless World

GMV is present in the space industry, both in the upstream and downstream sectors. More specifically, GMV develops technologies, systems and services in remote sensing and GNSS applications. In telecommunications, GMV provides innovative solutions through command and control platforms for a wide range of applications in transport, security, agriculture, forestry, defense, traffic control, urban planning, infrastructure development, tourism and more.

As a result, user segments and satellite based solutions include:

• Critical infrastructures protection (CIP)
• Support to emergencies, crisis management and reconstruction
• Maritime traffic monitoring systems
• Added value weather information services
• eo-information products for integrated forest management
• Precision farming services, including irrigation control and crop monitoring
• Market evaluation and development studies in potential user communities
• Development of network infrastructures for information management
• OGC web map servers to access GIS- information
• Earth observation data reception, processing, storing and distribution centers

Technical solutions sought at GMV follow the “system of systems” (SoS) concept, seeking the overall integration of multiple information sources, operational procedures and scenarios.

The SoS approach is particularly fit for EO based security applications, noting that “security” shares commonalities with many interest areas: civil, governmental, financial, political, industrial, etc. GMV has set up a number of security technical solutions in the frame of the EU security policies and implementation guidelines with a wide-open horizon for EO.

Critical Assets Monitoring

Critical Assets comprise a wide variety of elements, either man-made structures or natural, whose disruption, destruction or alteration may cause problems for the security of the States and citizens. GMV service activities include mapping, monitoring and early warning triggered by change detection of targets considered as critical infrastructures, such as resources related infrastructures (dams, power plants, etc.), lifelines and transportations networks(e.g. pipelines, roads, airports, ports, etc.) or any relevant building and area.

Setting up the service, GMV designed a production line based on the integration of SAR and optical satellite images which guarantees complete monitoring of both man-made and natural critical assets, even in case of cloud coverage or critical events happening during the night.

As part of the GMOSAIC project (GMES Services for Management of Operations, Situation Awareness and Intelligence for Regional Crises), GMV was responsible for the definition and operation of EO-based critical assets monitoring services, leading a team of eight European service providers.

The Spanish International Red Cross, one of GMOSAIC users, requested GMV a service on the area of Gonaïves, the second largest city in Haiti, situated in a valley and surrounded by steep hills. One of the natural critical assets monitored is the flooded area in Savane Jong, located south-east of the city. This area gets flooded only during the rainy season: it is considered a critical asset since the national Route from Gonaïves to Port-au-Prince crosses the seasonal lake.

Haiti, Gonaives, Natural critical assets monitoring

On the 12/01/2010, a massive earthquake destroyed Haiti’s capital, Port au Price. In this occasion, GMV kept track of the status of port infrastructures, namely damages on piers, docks, cranes, etc., in four different dates: before the earthquake (01/10/2009), immediately after (13/01/2010), some 5 months later (11/05/2010), and more than one year after the havoc (16/02/2011). Critical assets identification is the result of the visual interpretation of the Geoeye satellite (former 3) and IKONOS2 (latter) images obtained for the referred dates.

Emergency services

GMV provides users with EO based cartographic information for pre-crisis emergency support and preparedness. Mapping for emergency support is carried out in an off-peak crisis context, a fact that helps to control the method, production and validation of the service.

In this context, the Colombian Geographic Institute Agustin Codazzi (IGAC) requested GMV the emergency support service during the flooding crisis of 2010-2011 La Niña effect. The service was deployed over eight flood prone areas along the Magdalena River and tributaries. The case shown below depicts the area of Caucasia, a city by the Low Cauca River, a tributary of the Magdalena River, in the Department of Antioquia, north-western Colombia. The area lies between 7° 59’ 13’’N and 75º11’50’’W. The region is regularly flooded by La Niña effects, as it was the case in 2010. Overall, the sample shows the potential of satellite images and geographic information systems to support policy makers preventing recurrent emergencies, seasonal flooding in this case.

SAFER ESM methodology as applied by GMV to request made by the Colombian Geographic Institute Agustin Codazzi (IGAC).

Colombia Floods

Land border surveillance

Risk border analysis capabilities are made operational by providing added value information based on the aided analysis of different products, applications and indicators such as:

• fine LULC classification and individual feature recognition to support border control
• change detection analysis to detect suspicious activities or corridors
• socio-economic fluctuations to isolate migration routes and highlight changes on either side of borders
  The main stakeholder for this service is FRONTEX.

Maritime Security

Different projects have been promoted trying to provide insights about the future (technological) steps needed in the field of Maritime Situational Awareness (MSA). GMV has developed an operational ship monitoring service called SIMONS where Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery and innovate algorithms are being used in combination with available user data: Automatic Information System (AIS), Vessels Monitoring System (VMS), coastal radars. Also optical imagery has been used for specific cases. The data is combined to provide monitoring and decision support information to the users in an advanced Geoportal based on Open Geospatial Source (OGC) web standards. Further added-value products have been developed as coastline detection, ship detection and classification, AIS cross-check for alarm triggering and route propagation ….

GMV participates in the ESA MARISS project and coordinates the EC NEREIDS (New Service Capabilities for Integrated and Advanced Maritime Surveillance) project. While MARISS is more focused on assessing the usefulness of EO in an operational environment trying to integrate EO in the day-to-day operation of end-users, NEREIDS yields on developing a system of systems that permits a complete and meaningful maritime picture and permits solving the most challenging technological drawbacks that current services have to face on. This objective is completely aligned with what is promoted by the EUROSUR program.

eomag.eu-articles-1864-gmv-a-global-company-for-a-borderless-world.pdf