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13 March 2017 Spacemetric and Artificial Intelligence experts Simularity are partnering to improve pinpointing of significant changes in huge volumes of digital imagery.

With rapidly increasing volumes of imagery from satellite and other platforms, such as drones and video sensors, the challenge is to extract the anomalous changes from the predictable, everyday ones and spurious noise. Suppression of noise is a key factor determining the quality of change results, with poorly aligned data a major source of false signals and accurate geometrical coregistration of the imagery a critical but often overlooked prerequisite.

Simularity is the AI company that has developed the Automatic Image Anomaly Detection System (AI-ADS). They found a perfect match in Spacemetric’s Keystone technology which enables high-accuracy image coregistration to give customer’s true true “tip and cue” intel from their data. This high-fidelity information source has a wide range of applications such as identifying unexpected activity in remote areas, spotting illegal development in urban areas and monitoring border regions for potential threats.

“Until now, it’s been a real challenge for us to have properly aligned images for our AI to learn what’s normal on the ground, and then detect when something significant happens in an area of interest. With Spacemetric’s Keystone platform, not only can our customers get faster and more accurate anomaly predictions, but to do this from a broad range of image sources including drones and video makes this a game changer”
– Liz Derr, CEO, Simularity Inc.

“Smart change detection is something our customers are asking for, so by applying the Simularity AI-ADS to our image data we can deliver powerful insights to them in a timely manner”.
– Bob Moll, Managing Director, Spacemetric BV.


Simularity AI-ADS differentiating a localised fire as “Hotspot Anomaly” in Syria

About Spacemetric: Spacemetric is a leading provider of image management solutions for satellite and airborne sensors, delivering enhanced data access and streamlined processing from image acquisition to analysis. Solutions are built around the company’s Keystone Image Management System which forms the core of our engagements with sensor operators, data providers and solution integrators to meet demanding operational needs.

The UK Space Agency has awarded just under 150,000 pounds to three business incubation centres across the UK which will support entrepreneurs and small companies in the space industry.

The Agency is working with UK industry to deliver world-class science innovation support, in line with the Government’s Industrial Strategy, which emphasises the importance of science, innovation and skills.

The business incubation centres in the Solent, Scotland and the South West of England, will support start-up companies by providing advice and support, giving access to facilities and resources and collaborating on events and initiatives with other business incubators.

+ Just under 50,000 pounds has gone to a joint scheme between the National Oceanography Centre’s Marine Robotics Innovation Centre, in Southampton, and the University of Portsmouth’s Innovation Space. The money will be used to provide an innovation hub in Southampton with world-leading expertise in developing next generation Marine Autonomous Systems and an incubation centre in Portsmouth.

+ In a scheme led by the University of Exeter, the South West Centre of Excellence in Satellite Applications Partnership has received 50,000 pounds to run the SpaceTech Incubation Initiative, which will support start-ups and innovative SME’s to exploit space technology. SpaceTech will be delivered by SETsquared EXETER with high-potential businesses being provided with ‘grow-on’ space at Goonhilly Earth Station, Helston.

+ A further 50,000 pounds has gone to the Scottish Centre of Excellence in Satellite Applications, based at the University of Strathclyde, to work with Tontine in Glasgow, a high-tech acceleration and growth space for new businesses. The money will be used to support new start-up and scale up businesses.

The space sector is a UK success story, with growth averaging over 8% a year over the last decade, a turnover in excess of 11 billion pounds a year and ambitious plans to achieve 10% of the global space market by 2030. Much of this growth is anticipated to come from companies using space-derived data or services in a broad range of different sectors.

Helen Roberts, Regional Growth Manager at the UK Space Agency, said: “We are delighted to extend the network of incubators supporting space sector start-ups to cover even more of the UK.
“These new business incubators add to the existing network of SETsquared, Leicester Dock, UNIP in Nottingham, Loughborough University, Business Durham, Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) at its Daresbury Laboratory site, Glyndwr Innovations in St Asaph, North Wales and the European Space Agency’s business incubator at Harwell. We look forward to working with them and seeing them help exciting new businesses to develop and flourish.”

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The space sector is a UK success story, with growth averaging over 8% a year over the last decade, a turnover in excess of 11 billion pounds a year and ambitious plans to achieve 10% of the global space market by 2030. Much of this growth is anticipated to come from companies using space-derived data or services in a broad range of different sectors.

e-GEOS, a joint venture between Telespazio (80%) and the Italian Space Agency (20%), and Beijing Vastitude Technology, Chinese company active in the field of remote sensing and geo-information, have signed a multi-year agreement for the distribution in China of satellite data and related operational services generated by the Italian COSMO-SkyMed constellation.

Under this agreement, e-GEOS will provide satellite data to Beijing Vastitude Technology, its exclusive dealer in China, through a local ground station (CUT: Commercial User Terminal). The Italian company, in collaboration with the local partner, will also develop value-added services for monitoring the Chinese territory and its stability.

Intended for the needs of local institutions and companies, satellite monitoring will ensure pinpoint accuracy of the information, providing the support necessary to check phenomena such as urban subsidence and landslides, or for the safety of major infrastructure such as railways and pipelines.

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(17 February 2017) In line with the start of the next phase in the French-German MERLIN climate mission, SCISYS has received a contract from Airbus DS GmbH for the realisation of the Payload Operations Centre (PLOC) for the LIDAR instrument on the MERLIN satellite.

The PLOC is responsible for the automated preparation, generation and validation of commands to control the LIDAR instrument aboard the satellite, as well as for monitoring the instrument parameters.

The contribution by SCISYS to the MERLIN mission includes the hardware and software elements, as well as the central functions of the Payload Operations Centre. This includes important interfaces to the overall satellite ground segment of the joint satellite mission. The concept developed by SCISYS enables a fully automatic flow control that also allows intervention by an operator at any time.

The mission data captured will be received and pre-processed in the Control Ground Segment (CGS), operated by the French space agency CNES in Toulouse. Within the Payload Data Processing (PLDP) facility, the data will be processed into scientific data products and distributed to the science community.

For instrument monitoring and data quality evaluation, these products will be stored in dedicated German mission data storage. SCISYS will specify the final design of this data storage and has the responsibility for its development, testing and verification.

About MERLIN

Starting in 2021, the French-German climate mission MERLIN (Methane Remote Sensing LIDAR Mission) will observe greenhouse gas methane levels in the Earth’s atmosphere. The main goal of this three-year mission is to produce a global methane-concentration map. The German activities are funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and are coordinated by the aerospace management of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The MERLIN ground segment will also be realised with French-German cooperation. The main contractor for the German contribution is Airbus DS GmbH. It will implement the German parts of the MERLIN ground segment in cooperation with SCISYS Deutschland GmbH, the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (DLR-IPA) and the Remote Sensing Technology Institute (DLR-IMF).

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(By Andrey Pirogov, Racurs, Russia) For Russian geomatics, 2016 was an abundant year in terms of events, laws and new projects.

After numerous attempts to commercialise Russia’s Earth observation and remote sensing data (RSD), the Roscosmos State Corporation (former Federal Space Agency) finally managed to do it at the end of the year and the data can now even be purchased by non-residents! A number of Russian companies have already signed contracts regarding proliferation of the Russian RSD obtained by the Kanopus-V (2m GSD) and Resurs-P (1m GSD) satellites.

However, it’s difficult to say whether the Russian data can become competitive in the world market. The cost of 1km2 worth of data from Resurs-P is almost USD10, and although the data from Kanopus is cheaper it is delivered as microframes which is very labour-intensive in terms of processing. Another significant Roscosmos project was an open-data ERSD portal providing access to the Resurs-P and Kanopus-V data.

The other large-scale federal project in 2016 was the ‘Business Navigator’ service for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which is as yet only available in the Russian language. The service was commissioned by the joint stock company ‘Federal Corporation on the Development of Small and Medium Enterprises’, which was created by order of the president of the Russian Federation in 2015. The service for SMEs was developed as a “resource for businessmen who want to start or promote their businesses and to work honestly and transparently to pay all the taxes and securing their own future and the future of their children”. We hope that the service will become popular and help the promotion of street retail (as opposed to shopping malls or outlet-based retail).

In 2016 the joint stock company ‘Rostelecom’ entered the Russian geomatics market. It is a large telecommunication company, partially government-owned, which offers its own geoinformation system, namely RusGIS. Unfortunately there is lack of information about the results so far, although the company is loudly announcing its GIS ambitions and has created a number of geoportals for regions of Russia.

As for the Russian commercial companies, the NextGIS and Sovzond projects are worthy of a special mention. NextGIS presented a cloud-based version of the NextGIS Web and the QMS service (a catalogue of WMS/WFS services). Sovzond issued a cartographo-statistical product called World Evolution, which covers the major changes that have occurred in different countries across the globe between the 1980s and the present.

Open geodata progress

The amount of open geodata increased in Russia in 2016. For the first time ever, free access was given to data about road accidents in Russia. The Interior Ministry provides the data in the BezopasnyeDorogy.RF portal.

The actions of the Federal Service For State Registration, Cadastre And Cartography (Rosreestr) were somewhat confusing. It opened the section containing data about the administrative-territorial division of Russian but suddenly closed it a week later. Therefore, one now has to use the data about the boundaries within Russia from the OpenStreetMap project once more.

The largest Russian bank Sberbank launched the ‘Open Data’ project. Although Sberbank’s so-called ‘open data’ does not exactly fit with the commonly accepted definition of open data, we nevertheless welcome the initiative. We hope that there will be more data and that it will meet standard international requirements.

Russia is keeping pace with the world in the sphere of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) usage. The Russian UAV mapping market is presented with five largest companies producing a dozen fixed-wing UAV models and five multicopter models. The UAV market also survived a legislative challenge in Russia in 2016, when drones were banned from January until June. The laws were later revoked, however, and one can now use drones again providing the correct registration procedures are followed.

What can we expect in 2017?

The terms ‘import substitution’ and the ‘Register of Russian software’ became the major trends in the year 2016. Analysis of GIS-Lab.info (the most popular Russian forum of geomatics experts) shows an increasing number of queries for substitution of the foreign GIS for Russian ones or ones with an open source. Practically all Russian software developers entered the Register of the Russian Software which is controlled by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation. In 2017 this trend for import substitution will continue.

The ministries and offices of various levels will keep increasing the amount of open data, and not only of economic statistics. For instance, the public transport navigation data in Samara is open, due to the fact the citizens can choose between different mobile applications for the transport system. The open data will be actively applied in the regional and institutional GIS projects.

Global expectations

Cloud solutions and computing clusters are becoming more and more popular on the world stage. The virtual reality technologies are being intensively developed. Besides, we expect the growth of the Earth observation and remote sensing satellite constellations. Within the next decade or so hundreds of large satellites and a couple of thousand micro- and nanosatellites will be launched into Earth’s orbit. Everyday coverage with 1-3m GSD will be available soon. This will be followed by the transformation of quantity into the quality of the data distributed to the customers through web services.

The GIS industry is going to be affected by the level of competition in the data visualisation field. The projects of start-ups like Habidatum and Urbica are changing the approach to handling spatial information, from the classic reflection of the data on a map to the information being managed in the four-dimensional space. Integration of GIS with GRM and ERP systems has become evident. Consequently the methods and techniques in the sphere of geographical and geoinformational education will also have to change. Managers, marketing and financial experts should all be educated about GIS.

Andrey Pirogov has been head of the marketing department at Racurs since 2008. Andrey is also a lecturer on geoinformation-related aspects of business at the MSU Business School. Furthermore, he is a co-founder of the GISGeo project which is aimed at promoting geomarketing and the application of geomatics in Russian business. His fields of interest include marketing and management in the geospatial industry, geoanalysis and GIS education.

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(Munich, 31 January 2017) A European consortium coordinated by GAF AG has been selected to implement the research project “Evolution of Copernicus Land Services based on Sentinel data” (ECoLaSS) under the Horizon2020 Space call EO-3-2016. Focusing on Sentinel time series data, the project will explore innovative future Copernicus Land service products of the continental and global Land component and demonstrate pre-operational prototypes thereof.

With GAF (Germany), SIRS (France), Joanneum Research (Austria), the Catholic University of Louvain UCL (Belgium) and the German Aerospace Center DLR-DFD (Germany), the international project team combines expertise of operational service providers and renowned research institutions from four European countries. The consortium and the European Commission (EC) have signed a Grant Agreement with a duration of 36 months, starting January 2017. The project team has conducted a successful Kick-off Meeting on 20 January 2017 in Munich, attended by the project officer from the EC REA (Research Executive Agency), and by key stakeholders from the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the German Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG).

The unprecedented volume of freely available optical and radar earth observation data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1/2/3 satellites with high spatial, radiometric and temporal resolution provides an enormous synergistic potential for the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service. Based on this, ECoLaSS will develop, test and demonstrate next-generation operational methods, algorithms and prototypes for innovative Copernicus land cover / land use related products, in support of a future pan-European roll-out, and with a potential for global-scale applications.

GAF acts as overall and scientific project coordinator of the ECoLaSS project. Its technical responsibilities comprise the assessment of service evolution requirements in close coordination with the main Copernicus Land stakeholders; prototypic implementation, testing and demonstration of candidate services based on Sentinel time series; as well as benchmarking and selection of most mature services for operational roll-out. Amongst others, GAF will lead the technical implementation of prototypes for incremental updates of the Copernicus High Resolution Layers (HRLs).

About GAF AG

GAF AG is an e-GEOS (Telespazio/ASI) company located in Munich and Neustrelitz, Germany. It is a leading solutions-provider with an international reputation as a skilled supplier of data, products and services in the fields of geo-information, satellite remote sensing, spatial IT and consulting for private and public clients. GAF offers solutions in the sectors of land monitoring, natural resources, water and environment, security, mining and geology, agriculture, forestry and climate change. Since 1985, the company has successfully completed more than 1000 projects worldwide. GAF is one of the most experienced European service providers in the EU/ESA Copernicus programme and covers all thematic domains: Land, Marine, Atmosphere, Climate Change, Emergency Management and Security. For more information, please visit http://www.gaf.de.

To obtain more information, please contact:
GAF AG
Daniela Miller
Arnulfstr.199, 80634 Munich
Tel. +49 89 12 15 28-0. Fax. +49 89 12 15 28-79
info@gaf.de | www.gaf.de

Following the great success of the EARSC EO Company of the year award, we decided in 2016 to launch a new award for the EO Product of the year. This attracted strong competition with the final award winner being “Rocket in your Pocket” by Jeobrowser. The award is open again for 2017 and you are invited to submit your entry which this year will focus on products supporting the SDGs.

In 2015, countries adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These include a broad range of sustainable development issues; ending poverty and hunger, improving health and education, making cities more sustainable, combating climate change, and protecting oceans and forests.

The SDGs are being launched with an emphasis on collecting data that will be extensive and specific enough to serve these needs. They are designed to balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental. European EO industry can help achieve the SDGs by providing critical information on natural resources, government operations, public services, and population demographics.

EARSC EO product award for 2017 will recognise a product which will support the implementation of the SDGs at national, regional and/or local levels, and the monitoring and reporting against the global indicator framework

The competition will run over a 3 month period (March 2017- May 2017) during which time candidate companies may adapt an existing product, develop a new product or simply promote one they have already in their catalogue. Companies will be asked to provide a short summary of the results (report should not exceed 2 pages) which will be used as statement for the jury.

This year’s award will be announced during the EARSC annual cocktail where the winner of the EARSC “European Earth Observation company of the year” is also revealed.

This is your opportunity to follow in the steps of previous award winners and benefit from the prestige of winning an EARSC award!

Criteria: eligibility requirements & metrics

o Any commercial product which will support the monitoring and reporting against SDGs
o Report on the findings (not exceed 2 pages):

  • Explain what type of product the company offers
  • Describe the challenge: What problem this product will solve/what solution will this provide? How will this product contribute to the monitoring of a particular SDG?
  • Explanation of the circumstances surrounding the development of this product and the identification of the SDG which will support or the monitoring and reporting against the global indicator framework.
  • Expected impact to address

Timing

  • Dead-line entries: 22nd May 2017
  • Selection: the files will be judged by the jury to select the overall product winner (Period May 22nd -June 9th)
  • Announcement: EARSC cocktail 4th July 2017 in Brussels

Contact

EARSC secretariat

Toulouse, 27/02/2017: Airbus Defence and Space has closed a partnership agreement with Bird.i, a global platform for accessing the world’s best satellite, airborne and drone imagery. Objective of the partnership is to allow real-time on-line visualisation of Airbus Defence and Space freshest Pléiades and SPOT satellite images, and support the development of new applications and services across a wide range of related analytics markets.

Set-up in 2016, Bird.i team has developed a plug-and-play Application Programming Interface (API) for mapping and location-based applications for a variety of needs, ranging from professional to leisure needs. As part of this agreement, Bird.i will have on-line access to One Atlas, the world’s freshest satellite image library developed by Airbus.

Bernhard Brenner, Head of the Intelligence Business Cluster at Airbus Defence and Space, said “Bird.i is proposing an easy way of exploring the earth, and we are very happy to see our high and very high-resolution satellite imagery as a core layer in this. We are glad to help Bird.i entering new markets, where quick access and visualisation of the most recent satellite images will bring tangible benefits to many businesses.”

Bird.i’s founder and CEO Corentin Guillo said, “I am excited to partner with Airbus Defence and Space as one of our leading suppliers. Maximising the exploitation of their global coverage fits Bird.i’s commitment to serve the freshest possible images to its clients for mass consumption of instantaneously accessible ‘image views’. Both companies will collaborate to streamline the overall process of image consumption and Bird.i will strive at opening new markets.”

Media contacts: Fabienne Grazzini / +33 5 62 19 41 19 / fabienne.grazzini@airbus.com

(Munich, 24 February 2017) GAF AG is pleased to announce the award of the “GMES and Africa Support Programme Technical Assistance Team” service contract by the European Commission. The services consist of the provision of support and consulting to the African Union Commission (AUC), which is coordinating the GMES & Africa initiative.

GMES & Africa is a cooperation framework for the development and implementation of Earth observation based services that support sustainable development in Africa. One of the pillars of the cooperation is the European Copernicus programme (formerly GMES), which constitutes a major source of data, information and technological expertise. GMES & Africa will cover the entire African continent and will be guided by African-owned processes in order to serve African needs. The GMES & Africa support project will focus on improving the sustainable management of natural, water, marine and coastal resources through the use of Earth observation technology. This will allow for better and more informed decision making and will assist policy makers. GMES & Africa is to be implemented by a network of African institutions in cooperation with European partners. The African Union Commission has the role of coordinator and facilitator.

Regional consultation meetings are now under way. The first conference has already taken place in Kigali, Rwanda with delegates from the East Africa region including the Indian Ocean Islands. Similar consultation and information meetings are planned for the regions of Western, Northern, Central and South Africa over the next weeks.

The GAF team assists the AUC by providing technical consulting, as well as training and capacity support. The teamleader started his assignment to AUC in Addis Ababa and he will be joined by 2 more long term key experts. They will be supported by specialists and back office resources. The GAF team combines the experience and capacities of three partners. GAF AG, Germany is a European leader in end-to-end services in the field of Earth observation and geo-information, associated applications and technical assistance (TA) services. AHT Group AG, Germany is a leading service company in the domains of water and natural resources management, agriculture and nature conservation. BRL Ingénierie, France has leading experience in the management of coastal, maritime, water and land resources. All the partners have extensive experience of working in Africa.

Dr Stefan Saradeth, GAF Director International Consulting, observes: “GAF looks forward to using its extensive expertise in Earth observation in order to provide benefits to decision makers in Africa. With GAF’s more than 135 person years of accumulated Copernicus/GMES experience and its extensive TA portfolio, we feel confident that we and our team can provide best-in-class consulting services to our partners in Africa”.

The project has been awarded by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO), following a competitive bidding process that took into account technical merits as well as price. The project has started in January 2017 and has a duration of 46 months. It has a value of €3.6 million and is funded by the European Union as part of EuropeAid, under Contract Number 380768.


Caption: Group photo of the delegates that attended the GMES & Africa conference in Kigali, Rwanda

About GAF AG

GAF AG is a leading solutions-provider with an international reputation for the skilled provision of data, products and services in the fields of geo-information, spatial IT and consulting for private and public clients. Over the past 30 years, the company has been active in more than 1,000 projects in over 100 countries throughout Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. In addition, GAF is one of the most experienced service providers in the EU/ESA Copernicus Programme. GAF’s direct involvement with Copernicus, formerly GMES, started in 1998, at the same time as the Baveno manifesto was declared. The company is part of the Telespazio Group, which belongs to Leonardo and Thales, two European technology leaders.

To obtain more information, please contact:
GAF AG
Daniela Miller
Arnulfstr.199, 80634 Munich
Tel. +49 89 12 15 28-0
Fax. +49 89 12 15 28-79
info@gaf.de | www.gaf.de

(28 February 2017) Developers of an app that combines the increasing availability of satellite images with social networking took home the top prize at this year’s Space App Camp in Barcelona.

The App Camp offers access to the latest space data and the SAP Cloud Platform to European app developers, who work to make the information accessible to a broad audience.

As Europe’s Copernicus programme continues to launch the Sentinel satellites transforming their data into information to benefit citizens poses both a challenge and an opportunity. The App Camp is an occasion for developers to bring the data from these and other satellites to the everyday user via mobile apps.

The SnapPlanet app allows users to choose a location around the world at a given time, ‘snap’ it using images from Earth-observing satellites and share it with their followers.

“We know that our satellite data are key for a wide range of applications, but it surprises us every year how the participants come up with new ideas and new ways of integrating our data into these application areas,” said Josef Aschbacher, Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes.

“This is both inspiring, as the development of new ideas never ceases, and motivating for us to continue to deliver data from space for people on Earth.”

The participating teams at the five-day App Camp, held at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, had been selected from ESA’s Business Incubation Centres. Each team, composed of two members, demonstrated how satellite and business data can be used to create new business models and solutions in a nearly untapped market.

The winning team won €5000 and will be considered for the SAP Start-up Focus programme. As part of its ongoing collaboration with ESA, SAP works with the start-ups from ESA’s Business Incubation Centres across Europe.

“The startup solutions seen today are strategic bets on radically new business, further increasing the value of our thriving Earth observation ecosystem,” said Carsten Linz, global head of the Center for Digital Leadership at SAP.

“This allows a seamless, data-driven business turning big data into smart data and creating exemplary customer and user value.”

Other apps developed during the App Camp included Droughtscan miramAPP, which uses Sentinel-2 data to assist water managers who experience problems with dry peat levees during periods of severe drought.

SOUL aims to merge data from satellites and vehicle-based instruments to provide air-quality data in near-real time.

The Saturnalia app allows users to scan a bottle of wine and displays the best year for that particular wine based on satellite and meteorological data providing soil, atmosphere and weather information The app also recommends wines cultivated in similar conditions.

Exploiting Sentinel-1, -2 and -3 data, Earthflow analyses how climate change is impacting agriculture in different regions, and can advise farmers on selecting the most suitable crops while aiding regional governments in implementing better policies for agriculture and water management.

Initiated by ESA, the App Camp is managed by SAP’s Center for Digital Leadership and organised by Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen.

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