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Transportable autonomous patrol for land border surveillance (TALOS)

The main objective of TALOS multidisciplinary project is to develop and field test the innovative concept of a mobile, modular, scalable, autonomous and adaptive system for protecting European borders. The conventional border protection systems are based mainly on expensive ground facilities installed along the entire length of the border used only to observe, detect and warn. This infrastructure is complemented by human patrols, where there is an access to the border line. The system developed within the TALOS project will be more versatile, efficient, flexible and cost effective.

The complete system applies both aerial and ground unmanned vehicles, supervised by command and control centre, but in the TALOS project the emphasis will be put on application of UGV, communication and ability to command and control. The ground platforms will be both the watching stations and the first reaction patrols, which will inform the Control and Command Centre and an intruder about her/his situation, and will undertake the proper measures to stop the illegal action almost autonomously with supervision of border guard officers. The most important features of the system are scalability, autonomous operation, mobility and adaptability.

Details

Acrónimo del Proyecto: TALOS
Proyecto Reference: 218081
Fecha de comienzo del proyecto: 2008-06-01
Duración: 48 months
Coste del proyecto: 19.91 million euro
Tipo de contrato: Collaborative project (generic)
Fecha final: 2012-05-31
Proyecto Status: Execution
Financiación del proyecto: 12.9 million euro

Participantes

ASELSAN ELEKTRONIK SANAYI VE TICARET A.S.TURKEY
HELLENIC AEROSPACE INDUSTRY SAGREECE
OFFICE NATIONAL D’ETUDES ET DE RECHERCHES AEROSPATIALES-ONERAFRANCE
INSTYTUT TECHNIK TELEKOMUNIKACYJNYCH I INFORMATYCZNYCH SP. Z O.O.POLAND
EUROPEAN BUSINESS INNOVATION & RESEARCH CENTER SAROMANIA
SMARTDUST SOLUTIONS LTDESTONIA
ISRAEL AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES LTD.ISRAEL
STM SAVUNMA TEKNOLOJILERI MUHENDISLIK VE TICARET A.S.TURKEY
Valtion Teknillinen Tutkimuskeskus (VTT)FINLAND
TELEKOMUNIKACJA POLSKA S.A.POLAND
TTI NORTE S.L.SPAIN
POLITECHNIKA WARSZAWSKAPOLAND
SONACA SA

Wide maritime area airborne surveillance (WIMAAS)

WIMA²S addresses the Airborne building block of maritime surveillance with the potential for reduced cost of operation, more autonomous and improved efficiency through the introduction of air vehicles with reduced or zero onboard crew. Innovative concepts are required to support the integration of these new vehicles in a future European maritime surveillance system of systems. With 20 million km2, the surveillance of the European maritime domain has to be improved, according to the European Council, EC and Agencies such as FRONTEX. The urgent need is to control illegal immigration, but WIMA²S will also contribute to other missions.

You cannot control what you do not patrol. Even if cooperation is crucial, Air assets are a unique capability for wide area maritime surveillance because they provide situation awareness over extended areas (endurance, speed and long distance detection), re-direction to areas of interest (threat) and flexible reaction (inspection when needed). WiMA²S will develop concepts and technologies for better operational use at lower costs of: – Maritime Surveillance Manned Airborne Vehicle (MS MAV) including existing Mission Aircraft with zero or reduced onboard tactical crew – Maritime Surveillance Optionally Piloted Vehicles (MS OPV) because regulations will not allow UAVs to fly across European Airspace for years to come.

Intermediate solutions are required – Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Airborne Vehicle (MS UAV) because they will become a future key solution Supported by a User Group, WIMA²S consortium will provide tangible results: – Simulation based on operational scenarios – Innovative concepts and technologies held by simulation (algorithmic modelling, remote control, sensor data fusion) – In flight experiment (remote control, crew concept) – Cost benefit analysis – Dissemination of results (workshops) – Roadmap towards the introduction of reduced-crew platforms and UAVs including R&T priorities and future programs.

Details

Acrónimo del Proyecto: WIMAAS
Proyecto Reference: 217931
Fecha de comienzo del proyecto: 2008-12-01
Duración: 36 months
Coste del proyecto: 4 million euro
Tipo de contrato: Collaborative project (generic)
Fecha final: 2011-11-30
Proyecto Status: Execution
Financiación del proyecto: 2.74 million euro

Participantes

INSTYTUT TECHNICZNY WOJSK LOTNICZYCH*POLAND
SENER INGENIERIA Y SISTEMAS S.A.SPAIN
AEROVISION VEHICULOS AEREOS SLSPAIN
GALILEO AVIONICA S.P.A.ITALY
DASSAULT AVIATION SAFRANCE
UNIVERSITA TA MALTAMALTA
THALES COMMUNICATIONS SAFRANCE
SATCOM1 APSDENMARK
EUROSENSE BELFOTOP N.V.BELGIUM
TOTALFORSVARETS FORSKNINGSINSTITUTSWEDEN
COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIESDIRECTORATE GENERAL JOINT RESEARCH CENTREJRCBELGIUM
FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.VGERMANY
ZAVOD ZA VARNOSTNE TEHNOLOGIJE INFORMACIJSKE DRUZBE IN ELEKTRONSKO POSLOVANJESLOVENIA

[Satellite TODAY 10-07-09] Astrium was awarded a contract by Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary (KGS) to build two Earth observation satellites for the Kazakhstan government and create a joint venture for the construction of an assembly, integration and test facility in Astana, Kazakhstan, Astrium announced Oct. 6.

The two satellites will be a high- and medium-resolution imagery satellite. The high-resolution satellite will be provided by Astrium in France and based on the Theos and Formosat-2 platform. The camera will be based on the silicon carbide technology used on all Astrium optical instrument designs. The medium-resolution satellite will be produced by a collaboration between Astrium and U.K. subsidiary SSTL.

“This new space system will provide the Republic of Kazakhstan with access to a wide range of civil applications including monitoring natural resources and agriculture as well as providing mapping data and rescue operation support in the event of a disaster. It will also put the Republic of Kazakhstan at the forefront of current space technology and complement the country’s space heritage, most famous for the Baikonur spaceport. The images from the Earth observation satellites will also be distributed globally by Astrium’s subsidiary Spot Image,” Astrium CEO François Auque said in a statement.

Astrium also received a contract to provide training to technicians and engineers at Kazakhstan facilities. Financial details were not disclosed.

SOURCE

(7 October 2009). With land degradation in dryland regions continuing to worsen, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification has agreed on scientist-recommended indicators for monitoring and assessing desertification that signatory countries must report on.


The landmark agreement was reached after two weeks of negotiations involving hundreds of scientists and government ministers attending the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 9) of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 21 September to 2 October.

Desertification, land degradation and drought deprive people of food and water and force millions to leave their homes. Desertification refers to the creation of new deserts through the degradation of drylands, which cover 40% of the world’s land surface. Land degradation, caused by over-cultivation, over-grazing, deforestation and inefficient irrigation, affects roughly 20% of Earth’s drylands.

Since dryland desertification can be remedied or even reversed by using appropriate management techniques, scientists attending the first scientific session of the COP, held from 22 to 24 September, stressed the importance of developing science-based methods for monitoring the areas most at risk to support land and water management decisions. Satellite technologies were recognised as playing an important role in achieving this objective.

ESA has been working closely with the UNCCD secretariat for nearly 10 years, developing and demonstrating innovative information services based on satellite Earth observation (EO) technologies that allow land degradation processes to be monitored over time.

Monitoring desertification, land degradation and droughts requires the continuous evaluation of a complex set of parameters and indicators, some of which can be retrieved with EO technologies and state-of-the-art geo-spatial applications. For instance, the status of land cover – one of the 11 indicators defined by COP – can be monitored from space.

In 2004, ESA launched a large pilot project called DesertWatch to develop a set of land degradation indicators based principally on land surface parameters retrieved from satellite observations. These indicators were developed with the support of Italy, Portugal and Turkey – three of the European countries mostly affected by desertification.

DesertWatch also helped these countries fulfil their UNCCD reporting requirements by combining satellite data with weather and in-situ data, numerical models and geo-information systems to create standardised geo-information products.

ESA recently extended the project so that its methodology may be adapted and put to wider use. To demonstrate its applicability, the methodology will be applied to arid and semi-arid areas in Portugal, Brazil and Mozambique.

According to the UNCCD, soil moisture is another key parameter that should be monitored, because it is an indicator of water scarcity and vegetation stress. Soil moisture data can also be used for assessing drought risk.

The ESA-backed SHARE (Soil Moisture for Hydrometeorological Applications in the Southern African Development Community Region) project has developed a pre-operational soil moisture monitoring service with the long-term goal of supplying free soil moisture information for all of Africa, at a resolution of 1 km, via the Internet. SHARE was developed under ESA’s TIGER initiative, which helps African countries to overcome water problems. DesertWatch and SHARE are funded by the Data User Element (DUE) under ESA’s EO Envelope Programme.

ESA hosted an exhibition booth and a side event at COP 9 entitled ‘Earth observations from space for the UNCCD’, where the latest DesertWatch findings and results were presented. The side event also served as a platform for demonstrating the benefits of EO technology for the UNCCD Convention.

Speaking of DesertWatch, Dr Lucio do Rosario of the Portuguese delegation said: “We recommend the UNCCD Contracting Parties to adopt these methodologies. The benefits are multiple. They improve the monitoring and assessment of land degradation, provide more efficient decision-making and facilitate the reporting to the Convention on the indicators adopted by COP 9.”

In a message to COP 9, UN Secretary General Banki-Moon said: “In addressing climate change, the international community has tended, quite understandably, to focus on cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. But tackling the issue in all its complexity also requires to go beyond mitigation and take into account the intrinsic linkages between desertification, land degradation and climate change.”

ESA will continue to act on both fronts by helping the UNCCD community develop monitoring and assessing tools and supporting the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) community with long-term trend analyses of essential climate variables.

The Tenth Conference of the Parties of the UNCCD will be hosted by the Republic of Korea in October 2011.

SOURCE ESA

After massive flooding in an Eurasian country, relief workers seek open roads, allowing them to bring necessary supplies to stranded residents. Amid the chaos of war, a military general redirects a planned convoy to safety. Scientists measure the true levels of coastal erosion, an oilfield worker finds new potential for digging, and a tourist successfully navigates to a hotel in an unfamiliar city. Every day, satellite imagery plays a significant role in the decisions — both small and large — that make a difference in our lives.

This year marked some of the most significant advances in the satellite industry, bringing technology to life in new ways and to a broader audience. Japan’s SELENE satellite gave us stunning images of the lunar landscape as it concluded its mission this June, and South Korea attempted its first satellite launch from its own territory. In the commercial segment of the market, DigitalGlobe is also set to make history this year with the October launch of its second next-generation class satellite, WorldView-2, the first with combined high resolution and eight-band multispectral capabilities.

WorldView 2 WorldView-2: Fueling the Demand for World Imagery

Demand for accurate, up-to-date, high-resolution imagery continues to increase as new and varied industries learn how the information can provide game-changing opportunities for growth. Constituencies as diverse as defense and intelligence, civil agencies, mapping and analysis, environmental monitoring, oil and gas exploration, companies, infrastructure initiatives, Internet portals, and navigation technology concerns are seeking more detailed and improved currency of imagery to help solve everyday business issues.

The DigitalGlobe WorldView-2 satellite introduces the next generation of geospatial information, adding to what is already the world’s most complete and current resource of high-quality world imagery. The satellite will be the third component in DigitalGlobe’s constellation of high-resolution digital imaging satellites, and it represents a significant step forward for the industry. WorldView-2 features advanced agility and accuracy, state-of-the-art collection capacity, and eight-band multispectral capability. Its addition, the company’s sophisticated constellation will offer an unprecedented stream of new images every day, enhancing DigitalGlobe’s ability to rapidly collect and disseminate up-to-date imagery through its world imagery solutions.

Wavestream Ad SM Oct09 Improved Intelligence + Smarter Business Decisions
We live in a society that expects access to timely and accurate information. Viewing up-to-date imagery alongside historical benchmarks has a discernable impact on real-time decision making. On a battlefield for example, it is imperative to understand the whereabouts of supply routes, bridges, and safe-harbor locations — such as schools, churches, and hospitals — but taking the necessary time to confirm the true ground status can delay field decisions or require more dangerous and costly verification of the location of potential weapon caches or enemy forces. Today’s satellite imagery advancements ensure that troops have the intelligence they need to make the best decisions possible in real time, as events on the ground unfold.

For relief workers in the aftermath of natural or man-made disasters, access to detailed imagery in the days surrounding the event can mean life or death for those awaiting evacuation, relief supplies, or rescue. The smallest delay can have a tremendous impact on human life and recovery efforts. The accessibility and delivery of current and historical imagery can accelerate relief efforts by determining the safest and fastest routes for supplies and rescue, pinpointing safe harbor locations, and identifying potential roadblocks that could cause life-threatening delays.

In the business world, imagery may not always save lives, but it does aid organizations and individuals in corporate decision-making support, asset management, and GPS navigation. In fact, major consumer mapping sites have already realized the benefits that satellite imagery providers like DigitalGlobe have to offer, leveraging the technology to share and deliver image-based maps and applications to millions of users with a single click.

DigitalGlobe has been a pioneer in the commercial satellite imaging market. It was the first company to receive a license by the U.S. government to operate a high-resolution satellite for commercial use, and it has facilitated the adoption of satellite imagery into new markets by partnering with providers of personal navigation, social networking, and location-based services to integrate high-resolution satellite imagery with a variety of consumer applications.

With the launch of WorldView-2, DigitalGlobe will continue its leadership by bringing the world’s first commercial high-resolution eight-band multispectral products to market and by making an unprecedented amount of new imagery available to expert and lay users. The combination of large, seamlessly collected countries, states, and counties imaged in higher level of detail than traditional four-band satellites, combined with the sheer amount of daily new image collections, make for a formidable new offering from DigitalGlobe.

A powerful constellation of agile, high-resolution satellites provides three options to collect points on the globe on a given day, or multiple points of interest within a defined area, such as the disparate Olympic arenas in Beijing The additional band capabilities of WorldView-2 will also provide end users with the enhanced ability to track landscape changes down to the species levels of trees and plants, map the ocean floor, and identify and extract more features from the earth’s surface with much higher degrees of confidence than were previously possible.

Integral Ad SM Oct09 Better Accuracy

WorldView-2’s advanced geopositional technology allows for significant improvements in accuracy. The current accuracy specifications for an image acquired at nadir have been tightened to 6.5m CE90 without ground control. WorldView-class satellites record measured accuracy for a nadir image at a remarkable 4.1m CE90 without ground control and achieve sub-meter CE90 with ground control. These levels of accuracy provide detailed imagery for precise map creation, change detection, and in-depth imagery analysis without additional processing required by the user. Removing the need for further processing can mean the difference between immediate or delayed access to high-resolution imagery for end-users—a critical difference for professionals making real-time, location-based decisions as events occur.

New Spectral Bands Mean Deeper Analysis, Faster Insight

WorldView-2 will be the only commercial high-resolution imagery satellite with eight-band multispectral capability. The new bands support greater levels of feature identification and extraction, more accurate change detection, and a truer reflection of the world’s natural colors.

The benefits of the new multispectral bands are particularly useful for those monitoring land and aquatic environmental change. For instance, scientists studying coastline erosion will have a clearer picture of the areas they are monitoring than with four bands, allowing them to notice subtle differences and changes in greater detail: The four new spectral bands (coastal blue, yellow edge, red edge, and near infrared 2) enable broader ranges of classifications, enhanced vegetation and coastal analysis, the extraction of more features, and the identification and tracking of coastal changes and infractions. Additionally, the new red edge (the first in the commercial industry) and yellow edge spectral bands deliver more granular field classifications, improve the understanding of vegetation analysis, and provide early warning capabilities to industries that interact with the environment. The new coastal blue spectral band will enhance bathymetry studies for sea floors, coastal plains and waterways, discriminate features of the shallow ocean floor more accurately, and increase the scope of coastal remote-sensing applications, improving the safety of marine navigation and providing important insight into the ever-changing marine environment.

Further, mapping experts can use the additional bands to pinpoint more points of interest and create more diverse and interesting navigation applications.

Supporting Emerging Market Demands

As the number of industries leveraging satellite imagery continues to grow, so do estimates about geospatial imagery industry growth. Frost & Sullivan has reported estimates of $8.34 billion in revenue by 2010 for the global market that includes commercial remote sensing imagery, GIS software, data, and value-added services. The American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) has published similar high-growth projections, citing the call for higher resolution and improved geolocational accuracy as key industry drivers.

WorldView-2 is among the first commercial satellites to have control moment gyroscopes (CMGs), a high-performance technology that provides acceleration up to 10 times that of other attitude-control actuators and improves both maneuvering and targeting capability.

WorldView 2 logoWith the CMGs, slew time is reduced from more than 60 seconds to just nine seconds to cover 300km, allowing WorldView-2 to swing rapidly and precisely from one target to another in a single pass. Its sister satellite, WorldView-1, demonstrated WorldView-class agility by collecting eleven separate images of the Beijing 2008 Olympic stadiums in one pass.

When a more up-to-date source of world images is available, the potential uses increase, as more knowledge and insight can be extracted and imported into the daily location decisions and plans of organizations. Additionally, more predictability and more proof that images reflect the most accurate ground truth, discern more features, and tack more changes increase an end-user’s ability to make location-based decisions. Automating world imagery changes and extruding relevant sets of information are the next steps toward increasing the ubiquity of world imagery in business and social applications.

What’s Next?

As the satellite imaging market continues to grow, new applications will emerge and companies will continue to offer more sophisticated collection and monitoring capabilities. As a pioneer in the industry and a leading provider of commercial high-resolution imagery, DigitalGlobe will continue to innovate and excel in its development of highly accurate, easily accessible, and comprehensive world imagery. With the support of WorldView-2, users will be able to tap satellite imagery to address all of their location-based concerns—whether ensuring the safety of flood victims or just finding their way to the nearest Starbucks.

by K.C. Higgins
SATMAGAZINE

Today, the use of GIS technology is of growing importance for governmental and private economy bodies. A GIS is the main tool for collecting, managing, manipulating and visualizing data, referenced to a certain place on Earth. Already now most of monitoring and decision making processes are not feasible without modern GIS technologies.

However, the power of GIS technologies is limited by the unavailability of geo-data. While in larger scale applications for local governments or for limited areas land survey techniques are preferable, for larger areas (smaller scales), regions or even countries, remote sensing technologies are most appropriate.

RapidEye AG, Germany, launched its own satellite system August 29th, 2008. The RapidEye satellite constellation is the first, and currently the only, operational system that is able to repeatedly image larger areas in short intervals up to 24 hours. With its capability to produce orthorectified imagery with 5m resolution in 5 spectral bands (including a red-edge band), it is an ideal data source for monitoring tasks in the fields of environment, agriculture, and forestry.

The advantage provided by RapidEye is data availability and quality. The Company provides a wide spectrum of services for clients in our core markets: Agriculture, Forestry, Energy and Infrastructure, Spatial Solutions, Emergency Analysis, and Environment. A few solutions will be presented in detail: crop typing, field boundary extraction, crop condition assessment, forest monitoring, and change detection for infrastructure and environmental purposes.

Bring On EO

land cover map The development of Earth observation (EO) satellites allowed for high and very high spatial resolutions. Currently, systems with 0.6m resolution are available and others with as much as 0.4m resolutions are being manufactured. The use of satellite remote sensing applications in a number of application areas is still somewhat limited, especially in cases where information is needed at a predefined moment in time, where imagery is needed with a high repetition rate, or where image availability must be guaranteed. High repetition rates, for instance, are necessary for multi-temporal investigations, based on plant growth models, in agriculture and forestry, for monitoring applications, for ecological tasks, as well as for land cover classifications. As the image availability for optical systems is highly dependent on a lack of cloud coverage, only a high repetition rate can increase the probability of image acquisition. The temporal aspect of data acquisition, and therefore the probability of image availability in a given time frame, has an increasing impact on the acceptance and usage of remote sensing technologies.

The RapidEye System + Approach

YR20 ad SM Oct09Based on the limitations discussed above, the concept for the RapidEye satellite system was developed as a solution. The core capability of the system had to be a high temporal resolution in combination with high spatial resolution and large, daily area coverage. The relationship between ground resolution and area coverage was optimized to 6.5ms ground sampling distance, resampled to 5m pixel size, and a 77 km swath width for the sensor. With a system comprised of five satellites in a nearly polar orbit, any point on the Earth’s surface can be accessed every 24 hours. Each satellite performs 15 orbits per day, and the whole system can cover as much as 4 million square kilometers per day (within the mentioned specifications). Each of the satellites is equipped with a multispectral imager, designed as pushbroom-scanner with 5 CCD lines, one for each spectral channel. The integrated image memory is capable of storing an overall length of 1,500 km of image stripes in 5 spectral bands. During image sessions, the camera can be switched on and off to spread the image capacity over the entire orbit. Further, every satellite is equipped with a tilting system — this enables RapidEye to point the satellite to an area located to the left or to the right from the nadir-looking footprint. Large continuous areas, such as the sample of Eastern Europe, can be fully covered in a few days.

In addition, the RapidEye satellites contain a sophisticated infrastructure for order handling, satellite control, data downloading and image processing, all located in the company headquarters in Brandenburg, Germany. A customer request, entered by electronic order system into, or by an operator, will be sent to the satellites via S-band connection to the satellites twice a day. During each session, the imaging program for the next seven days is uploaded into the satellites’ memory. This ensures image acquisition even in the event a satellite cannot be contacted for some time. Together with the area to be imaged and other special options, an up-to-date cloud forecast is factored into the acquisition planning.

After successful image acquisition, the data is downloaded to Svalbord, Norway, and subsequential transferred by land-line to the Brandenburg headquarter. Here, the data is subjected to the standard processing of as many as three levels. The highest is level 3, an orthorectified image tile of 25 × 25 km with 5m pixel size, ready to be loaded into any GIS. Optional atmospheric correction can also be applied. The tile size is an internal storing solution. Customers can order data for individual areas of interest and will be charged for the ordered area only.

RapidEye also provides a wide spectrum of value added products and services to its customers, each service being an individual solution for that customer.

For Agriculture…

Chlorophylll mapThe RapidEye system was designed to meet agricultural demands, especially the need for up-to-date information for precision farming technologies. RapidEye imagery with its high spatial, temporal and spectral resolutions is an excellent data source for this group. Thematic information still must be extracted from the data and can be prepared for immediate use in agriculture GIS.

Paradise Ad SM Oct09An initial product is crop area detection. With the help of multi-temporal land cover classification approaches RapidEye specialists can detect and map arable land, distinguish between crop types, and determine field boundaries. This provides the base information for an agriculture GIS setup. Currently, the Company develops a web-based GIS — this enables customers to visualize, edit, and store field data for further thematic investigations.

In addition, RapidEye is currently defining and operationalizing detection methods for further crop types, applicable for certain environmental conditions.

The RapidEye system with its red-edge spectral band is especially sensitive to chlorophyll in plant tissue, which is an important indicator for plant vitality. A repeated visit of plant chlorophyll content allows for the monitoring of the nitrogen nutrition status of plants.

RapidEye specialists use vegetation indices for the derivation of growth curves, which can be used to distinguish crop types and to assess crop condition and growth stages. Once the “normal” growing behavior of a certain crop type is known, repeated data acquisition enables the specialist to assess the plants’ status in comparison to what is standard for this particular area. Farmers receive helpful information in order to apply the right measures for optimal growing.

In this context, RapidEye can provide customers with ground cover maps. Such maps reveal what percentage of the ground is covered with green vegetation in various parts of a field. Areas with a lower percentage of ground cover may need special treatment, such as fertilizer application, irrigation measures, and pesticide application.

Ground cover maps offer an overview about plant status, but do not indicate reasons for either poor or good plant growth. The chlorophyll content highly correlates with the nitrogen content of the plant, which can be observed with the help of the red-edge band of RapidEye imagery. If the detectable relative content can be scaled by means of ground-based nitrogen measurements, an absolute value can be calculated, visualized as map layer, and later used for precision fertilizer application. The knowledge of plant status at different moments in the growing cycle and their comparison to standard values gives an indication about expected yields.

Of course, the results in the earlier stages of a growing season are less reliable than those acquired a few weeks prior to harvest. The accuracy of yield estimations further depends on the knowledge of other factors, such as meteorologic conditions, solar radiation, and so on. The RapidEye spatial resolution allows such investigations at field level. With the help of field size values, determined during creation of agriculture base information collection, real yield estimation values can be calculated.

An accurate estimation of yield will help to plan harvest, warehouse and food processors’ logistics as well as predicting the food supply and/or overhead, that’s ready to export. In greater scale, this is an indicator for food prices in the world market.

For Forestry…

Forestry is the another huge vegetation class. Frequent image acquisition for monitoring purposes doesn’t actually make a great deal of sense for forests because of their low growing activity. Nevertheless, customers ask us for annual status images of their forests. Such imagery is needed, especially if damage appears, such as after a storm event. The content of an image, acquired after such an occurrence, will be compared to the previous status image to determine the area affected and wood volume loss.

For boreal forests, RapidEye can determine the stem volume of coniferous trees with 70 to 80 percent accuracy. This technology is of interest for damage assessments and for plantation evaluation, wood supply management for paper mills and so on.

Insect infestations detection is another area of focus imagery that is of great value, as it gives an indication of trees’ vitality. Infestation centers, distribution directions, and speed, can be assessed. This is valuable information for responsible and cost effective pesticide application.

For Monitoring + Change Detection Services…

Another strength of the RapidEye system is the frequent image availability, which makes the data very suitable for monitoring applications. With the help of repeated status images over a specified time period, changes between the different image dates can be detected. This helps identify trends, describes ongoing processes, and is the base for mathematical modeling with the goal of predicting future status of this process.

Changes result from different causes. If changes are related to spatial movements, the objects of interest need to be identified with high confidence in the data. The difference of coordinates describes the dynamics of location changes within a certain time period.

Changes in objects’ features, expressed in different spectral values, require a normalization of auxiliary conditions. Only in this case, the relevant changes can be detected. Due to the inhomogeneity of objects, a prior classification and masking will be necessary. This step results in change detection for whole classes of image content.

Appearing or disappearing objects can be detected, as well. This requires an initial detection of objects. Then, a comparison between identified objects can be completed. As a result, positive changes, or the appearance of new objects, and negative changes, and disappearing objects can be visualized at a map layer.

The RapidEye images’ pixel size allows detection of changes in objects greater 20×20m, or of linear objects wider than 10m. Infrastructural changes are often smaller. RapidEye imagery can be helpful in detecting areas of change, even if such is not possible to visualize exactly what has changed. This can be further investigated by ground teams, or with the help of other information sources.

Requests for environmental monitoring can also be fulfilled by RapidEye satellites. The vegetation cover is a good indicator of environmental impact. A regular image of an area of interest serves as a reference. Whenever a new image is acquired, changes to the last image can be detected. Areas of noticeable change point to abnormal impact to growing conditions. A highly productive vegetation area in the vicinity of a water pipeline in the desert indicates leakage.

A decreasing vitality of arable crops indicates plant stress, possibly caused by low soil moisture level. This is a first indicator for identifying progressive desertification activity. Abrupt changes, especially with sharp borders, speaks to accidental changes, such as land slides.

Constellation Competence

RapidEye sidebarThe RapidEye satellite constellation is a long awaited system and is now able to reliably provide up-to-date imagery in 5 spectral bands with 5m image resolution for a wide range of customers. The constellation overcomes the hinderance of using satellite imagery for frequent Earth observation — the uncertain image availability. Cloud cover remains an obstacle, but the system can attempt to acquire the requested imagery at frequent intervals. Simultaneously, large areas can be imaged.

The information content, represented by 5 spectral bands, each with 12 bit radiometric resolution, is tremendous. With its high standard processing level Rapid Eye imagery is a preferable data source to be used in GIS, especially for agriculture, forestry, environmental and monitoring applications, as well as for topographic mapping and other spatial applications.

RAPIDEYE

SOURCE

More than 600 participants from 36 nations attended the OceanObs’09 conference. The conference statement drafted as a result of the week’s discussions is available for comment through 4 October, 2009.

The OceanObs’09 meeting concluded on Friday 25 September with the goal of providing ‘routine and sustained global information on the marine environment sufficient to meet society’s needs for useful hindcasts, nowcasts and forecasts of marine variability (including physical, biogeochemical, ecosystems and living marine resources), weather, seasonal to decadal climate variability, sustainable management of living marine resources, and assessment of longer term trends’.

The statement from the conference continues as follows:
Recognizing the progress in ocean observations in the last decade, the demonstrated societal benefits of the existing elements, the recent technical and scientific developments that enable enhancements to observing systems and ensuing services,

Having broadly consulted with the communities involved in the production, distribution and use of ocean information, Informed by 99 Community White Papers, 47 Plenary Papers, and discussions captured in the Conference Summary,

Call for significantly enhancing internationally-coordinated provision of sustained observation and information of the world ocean, as a part of the larger earth observing effort, for public good and stewardship.

Despite the profound importance of marine information to meet the needs of our societies, the resources necessary to observe, assess and forecast global marine conditions are fragile and insufficient.

Core principles of participation in the sustained observing system include recognition that users require rapid access to all relevant data, free of charge. An integrated system, making use of remotely sensed and in-situ observations is essential. Observations are openly shared in near-real-time when technically feasible. They are collected, analyzed, archived, and distributed to internationally agreed standards with agreed best practices.

A true global partnership with strong local benefits requires involvement of all stakeholders. All nations must work together for mutual benefit, through educational programs and development of national capacity.

Many organizations are playing roles to sustain and develop the ocean observing system.

At the global level, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and the International Council for Science (ICSU) sponsor the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), which have taken the lead in formulating the present plan for the sustained global ocean observing system. The satellite agencies of the world also play a fundamental role in the integrated observing system, and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) has helped coordinate a global response to needs. Nations have been urged to act on this GCOS Implementation Plan by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). The WMO-IOC Joint Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM) and its partner global observing networks coordinate observations, standards, the data system, and the development of services for much of the physical and carbon ocean observing system. ICSU’s Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) coordinates international ocean research that has and will develop observing techniques and networks that become a part of the sustained ocean observing system.

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) facilitates and coordinates research in the Antarctic and Southern Ocean. The Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO), a forum for leaders of major oceanographic institutions responsible for implementation and operation of various observing elements, advocates integrated global ocean observing systems and helps build the capacity to make them a reality. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) is committed to a strengthened role for scientific research on marine ecosystems as a basis for advice that is unbiased, sound, reliable, and credible, to the benefit of management and conservation of marine ecosystems and living marine resources.

The North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) coordinates scientific research and observations on marine environment, ecosystems, and their living resources in the North Pacific and its marginal seas. The Census of Marine Life (CoML) is global network to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and its marine projects promote the development of ocean observing techniques and provide research results that will become a growing part of a global integrated ocean observing system. At the regional and national level, meteorological agencies, oceanographic agencies, space agencies, fisheries agencies, research funding agencies, marine research institutions, ocean-related service providers, regional alliances, and the Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) program are all key contributors to a sustained ocean observing and information system.

Website: http://www.ioc-unesco.org
by Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission

SOURCE

Gisat has been awarded by the EEA for CLC2000/2006 data analysis services provision

Gisat has been awarded a contract with the European Environment Agency (EEA) for the provision of CORINE Land Cover 2000/2006 data analysis and finalisation of country assessments.

In particular, the subject of this contract is to provide the EEA with the 32 ‘Country Sketches Assessment (CSA)‘ – analytical and assessment country fact sheets based on latest CORINE Land Cover pan-European data from 2006 update and using the EEA’s integrated assessment framework – land and ecosystem accounting (LEAC). The results will be used by the EEA as a direct input into to the Land Use Data Centre (LUDC) development and the service contract shall also support the EEA’s work on land cover/land use change analysis and related assessments from a European perspective for ongoing reports like the ‘State and Outlook of Europe’s Environment‘ (SOER2010) and the ‘Europe’s Environment Assessment / Eureca2012‘ as well as other specific reports on land issues to come.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) based in Copenhagen supports sustainable development and helps to achieve significant and measurable improvement in Europe’s environment, through the provision of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information.

Gisat has a proven track record for land related services provision for the European Environment Agency (EEA), being a long time member in the European Topic Centre on Land Use and Spatial Information (ETC LUSI) as well as a member of the Technical Team supporting European CLC updates implemention. In this contract, Gisat also capitalizes previous experiences and tools developed in various land related projects (e.g. ESA GSE project SAGE, GUS, GSELAND) dealing with spatial data based automatic profiles generation for user defined units used for land accounting, change assessment, indicator development and dedicated cartography creation.

SOURCE

(EC “Report on Progress Made in Developing the European Border Surveillance System (Eurosur)”

Note especially:

- 2.1.1. Step 1: Providing the essential border surveillance infrastructure at national level

o During the 2nd half of 2009, FRONTEX will present the risk assessment determining those parts of the external borders of the Member States which should be covered by a national surveillance system […]. At the same time, the different technical concepts for the surveillance of external land and maritime borders elaborated by the contractor of the technical study will be presented to the Member States […] The Commission will consider, in consultation with the Member States whether the concepts and the [European Border Funds] guidelines could become minimum technical requirements to promote interoperability and uniform border surveillance standards, with the possibility for a legislative proposal to be tabled in 2011.

- 2.2.1. Step 4: Research and development to improve the performance of surveillance tools

o 2.2.1.1. Objective: The intention of this step is to promote the use of FP6 and FP7 to improve the performance and use of surveillance tools in order to increase the area covered, the number of suspicious activities detected as well as to improve the identification and tracking of potentially suspicious targets and the access to high resolution observation satellite data.

- 2.2.2. Step 5: Common application of surveillance tools

o 2.2.2.1. Objective: The purpose of this step is the development and setting up of common applications of surveillance tools to provide national coordination centres with surveillance information on their external borders and on the pre-frontier area on a more frequent, reliable and cost-efficient basis. FRONTEX could act as a facilitator in this regard, e.g. via the procurement of satellite imagery on behalf of Member States and co-ordinating the sharing of surveillance equipment such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

o 2.2.2.2. Measures taken during the reporting period: In June 2009, the GMES border surveillance group, consisting of experts from the Commission, interested Member States, FRONTEX, ESA, EUSC and EDA, has finalised its work on a concept for the common application of tools for border surveillance, in which it identified the Main user scenarios and requirements for land and maritime border surveillance; State-of-the-art technology to meet these requirements (e.g. airborne and space based surveillance platforms) and applicability of this technology to the different user scenarios.

o 2.2.2.3. Next measures to be taken: […] In 2010, under the FP7 2011 work programme (space theme), a number of projects will be programmed to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the scenarios chosen.

- 2.3.2. Step 8: Creation of a common information sharing environment for the whole EU maritime domain

o 2.3.2.2. Measures taken during the reporting period: In 2008, the EC and ESA started a set of joint initiatives aiming at investigating the possibility of picking up and distributing Automated Identification System (AIS) signals from space. The conclusions of the projects will feed into recommendations for possible next steps towards a common space-borne AIS service by the end of 2010.

- 3. CONCLUSION: […] Concepts and tools developed under Phase 2 (in particular steps 5 and 6) shall be first tested and then progressively inserted into the EUROSUR framework from 2012 onwards.

st13770.en09.pdf

(Source Eurospace)

European Earth observation programme (GMES) and its initial operations 2011–2013

Please find here a procedure file on European Earth observation programme (GMES) and its initial operations 2011–2013. The paper has been discussed at the meeting (28/09) of ITRE committee of the European Parliament regarding the Regulation on GMES Initial operation

Procedures_GIO.pdf

(Source ASD-Eurospace)

communication from the EC “Reviewing Community innovation policy in a changing world” (com(2009)442final_en.pdf), which presents an assessment of the achievements and shortcomings in implementing Community policies in support of innovation in recent years.

Together with a series of more detailed Commission staff working papers (http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/innovation/documents/index_en.htm) it serves as an input to the preparation of a new European innovation plan, as called for by the European Council last December (in the conclusions of this Council, under FR presidency, space was one of the five industrial sectors explicitly mentioned!).

The objective is to put in place new ambitious policies to foster innovation in Europe. The new policy will be presented in the context of the forthcoming post-2010 Lisbon strategy for growth and jobs, taking into account the global economic crisis.

It is worth noting:

- in the EC staff working paper “Challenges for EU support to innovation in services – Fostering new markets and jobs through innovation” (st12956-re01.en09.pdf)

o p. 5: the Presidency conclusions of the European Council of 12 December 2008 called for the launch of a European plan for innovation, encompassing all of the conditions for sustainable development and the main technologies of the future, including new services deriving from them, in particular space-based services which represent an important potential market.

o p. 78: “[…] the European Knowledge Intensive Services Innovation Platform (KIS-IP), was launched in February 2008. The KIS-IP addresses the specific needs of innovative service firms and it focuses on the innovative service solutions in technological and industrial fields by developing and testing new or better innovation support mechanisms for innovative SMEs […]. The KIS-IP currently consists of three sectoral partnerships in the areas of ICT, space-based services and renewable energy services”

o p. 85: “Recent results from the Europe INNOVA initiative show that innovative SMEs operating in riskier environments like knowledge intensive services or very early stage markets continue to have problems accessing finance. For example, space-based services have difficult access to capital for breakthrough development in Europe. This is due to the problems in the European risk capital markets, in particular to the problem of providing sufficient growth capital. These problems are addressed in detail in the Staff Working Document ‘Financing Innovation and SMEs’ ”.

- In the EC staff working paper ‘Lead Market Initiative for Europe – Mid-term progress report” (swd_lmi_midterm_progress.pdf)

o on p. 86, the EC provides a number of suggestions for other applications of the LMI: “There are several industries and market segments which may be suitable for a LMI-type approach, for instance, in satellite-derived applications. […] more emphasis could be placed on fostering innovative products and services that could potentially have the greatest impact on meeting societal challenges. This would establish the LMI approach as a tool to meet societal challenges at hand.”

The EC is now organizing a public consultation which seeks to follow up the findings of the referred Communication. It will explore new ways to address challenges for a better European innovation policy and collect information for the impact assessment report on the innovation plan. To this purpose, a list of questions has been prepared (see doc in attachment).

All interested stakeholders are invited to submit comments by Monday 16 November 2009 to entr-innovation-policy-development@ec.europa.eu.

infoconsultationoncommunityinnovationpolicyconcern.zip

(Source ASD-Eurospace)