GAF was founded 30 years ago as a university spin-off and since then it has enjoyed a steady growth curve and sustained profitability. Today GAF is proud to be one of the world`s leading companies in the geo-spatial market. GAF is headquartered in Munich, Germany with a branch in Neustrelitz (North of Berlin). More than 200 highly qualified staff and 30 years of experience are ready to serve you. We have a successful track record of more than 1000 projects in 100 countries globally and we have project offices worldwide. We work for industry and private sector, for international institutions and development banks, national authorities and clients.

What is our business?

Geo-data, technology, solutions, products

We offer a comprehensive end-to-end service portfolio: earth observation data, geo-products, integrating space technologies (satellite communication, earth observation and positioning) into real world applications. Software and systems, technology consulting and institutional strengthening. We are keeping pace with the accelerating technological developments in our professional lives for your benefit.

Development, sustainability, compliance

We work in the fields of natural resources and raw materials, environment and water, forestry and agriculture, infrastructure and emergency management. We provide sustainable solutions in resources management, inventories, monitoring and planning based on sound management practice, involving leading experts and know-how transfer expertise. Ready to serve you from our home base, in your office, and in the field.

GAF is a key contributor in the Copernicus programme

GAF is one of the most experienced European service providers in the EU/ESA Copernicus Programme and covers all the thematic areas: Land, Marine, Atmosphere, Emergency Management and Security. GAF’s direct involvement with Copernicus, formerly GMES, started as early as 1998, when  GAF contributed to GMES related R&D and then to GMES pre-operational services.  Today, in the operational Copernicus setting, GAF is a major player – as a leader as well as a partner in the European service teams – and has a strong competence in Land Monitoring and Emergency Management. This is reflected by the fact that 60 staff members are currently dedicated to Copernicus services provision, including operation of a 24/7 emergency service. GAF’s former affiliate EUROMAP – now merged with GAF – has for many years provided data services centred around the fleet of Indian EO systems and is as such involved in the Copernicus Space Component Data Access.

Earth Observation and Geoinformation in Technical Assistance and Consulting

Since its set-up in 1985 GAF has been taking Earth Observation- and Geo-information- based solutions beyond Europe and to the developing world - with a particular focus on projects in Africa and Asia funded by international donor organisations such as the World Bank, European Union, IADB and ADB. Developing nations have specific demands, which often include base mapping and monitoring of resources in vast and remote areas, and an important aspect is also the provision of capacity building and know-how transfer. In response, GAF has combined EO and GI into comprehensive solution packages consisting of in-depth application know-how, business process redesign, information technology, training and institutional strengthening. Today, the GAF track record comprises projects in more than 100 countries spread over 4 continents, and roughly one quarter of GAF’s revenues are generated in the so-called Technical Assistance and Consulting sector.

Emergency Mapping: damage map example from Nepal earthquake (Kathmandu). © European Commission, Copernicus Emergency Management Service

Riparian Zone products in Danube valley: VHR LC/LU (left), Riparian Zone delineation (right). © EEA

Capacity building and training form an important part of our work in the technical assistance sector (example: Support to the Darfur Land commission)

Contact information
GAF AG
Arnulfstrasse 199, D-80634 Muenchen, Germany
+49/89/121528-0. info@gaf.de
www.gaf.de

The start of something new

In 2010, former students at Tromsø University and Chalmers University of Technology and researchers at Norut in Tromsø saw a general industry problem; Decision makers across industries were lacking accurate geospatial data, both in space and time, to be able to do good decisions as regards to safety, maintenance, investments and production.

Existing equipment or methods used were either, inaccurate or too expensive, to continuously track the dynamics of our environment. Decisions are being made, however with a good degree of uncertainty or with vast amounts of resources spent on various measurements and equipment.

Eager to take on the challenge, and to provide better geospatial data, the company Globesar was formed, backed by the research institution Norut with decades of research and development in remote sensing technologies.

A couple of years down the road, the company has grown in size, and developed into a global service provider with customers on several continents. The cross-disciplinary team has more than 15 years of experience in analysing satellite data, primarily data from radar and optical sensors, and is providing high quality mapping and monitoring solutions to its clients.

As of today the company offers two satellite services to its clients;

Assisting decisions makers with new surface deformation data

As surface deformations occurs from natural or man-made reasons it is very important to identify and track the deformations in order to better understand which impact the deformations can have on for instance safety and maintenance.

Existing and more traditional geodetic measurement systems, such as levelling and GNSS, are limited as regards to spatial coverage and can in addition, have limitations as regards to accuracy, making it challenging to understand and analyse the deformation measurements.

With the application of a series of radar satellite measurements and the InSAR methodology Globesar can provide mm-accurate deformation data without any ground equipment installed. As radar satellite measurements cover large areas it is possible to produce a large network of measurements points to a fraction of the cost, compared to existing geodetic methods. Companies and organizations can benefit from continuously updated deformation data to better understand the stability dynamics in their areas of interest. In addition, as radar satellites have been acquiring data since the early 1990’s, it is possible to reproduce historical deformation trends. The company has clients within application areas such as; natural hazards, infrastructure, Oil and Gas, hydropower.

Image below illustrate an example of Globesar’s surface deformation product covering a city in Europe. Both images show the same area. The colour scale in the image to the right illustrate the stability of the area monitored, covering a period of approximately 12 months. Blue/green colour means no or little deformation, while yellow/red areas show deformation of up to 40mm.

Click for large view

Figure 1. The two images show same area. Image to the right illustrate deformation data provided using the InSAR technique together with radar measurements from the TerraSAR/TanDEM-X satellite provided by Airbus. Red/yellow areas illustrate subsidence whilst green/blue areas are stable.

Improving water resource management

Water resource management is important to efficiently plan, develop, distribute and manage our water resources. In cold regions, where water is being accumulated in form of snow, it is important to track the snow cover and its characteristics to potentially prevent and warn for any flooding situations that may arise or to better plan the production of electricity.

Globesar offers mapping and monitoring services on snow cover using optical and radar satellite sensors. Clients across the globe can benefit from daily delivered snow maps together with historical statistics dating back from early 2000.

Click for large view

Figure 2. Image show an example of Globesar’s daily snow cover product.

Contact information
Globesar AS
Oslo Innovation Park
Gaustadalleen 21
0349 Oslo, Norway
+47 406 01 994
info@globesar.com
www.globesar.com

TerraNIS SAS is a new company, created in March 2014 and located near Toulouse – France. TerraNIS is designing and delivering geoinformation services, based on Earth Observation, to its customers in the field of agriculture and environment.

TerraNIS operates and sells worldwide the Pixagri and *Œnoview services, respectively dedicated to precision farming and precision viticulture. Those two services were originally developed by Astrium (which became Airbus Defense and Space in 2014) in collaboration with INRA and ICV respectively. TerraNIS and Airbus have signed a partnership agreement early 2015 which allows TerraNIS to use and further develop this original technology.

TerraNIS is also the founder and the operator of EUGENIUS ^TM . The EUGENIUS ^TM initiative (which stands for European Group of Enterprises for a Network of Information using Space) aims at creating a network of SMEs distributed across the different European regions in order to deliver geo-information services in the regions where they are located.

ŒNOVIEW and PIXAGRI services

Œnoview is a comprehensive service, available worldwide, that helps winegrower detect sub-field and inter-field variations at veraison stage (veraison represents the transition from berry growth to berry ripening, and many changes in berry development occur at veraison).

The Œnoview® cartography measures the variability of vine vigor through the anlysis of multispectral optical satellite imagery (resolution less or equal to 1,5m) and the level of internal variability of each vineyard. Zoned maps are produced, which can be used for the improvement of the technical management (fertilization, harvest, pruning, bunch thinning…) of the vineyard. On a large scale, groups of vineyards presenting the same characteristics can be created to improve harvest organization.

Œnoview is based on a software application called Overland ^™ , which uses a unique image processing methodology that doesn’t depend on local and weather conditions. Our crop experts, namely oenologists, systematically check maps before they are delivered.

The maps are delivered in image formats compatible with most geographic information software, thus allowing you to conduct sub-field and inter-field analysis from the office or in the field. Map files are interoperable and supported by a wide range of mobile and on-tractor systems. 

We also deliver fully annotated and printable maps in PDF format at field level, highlighting the intra-field variability.

Figure 1: Field-level map of fCover, shows the surface area of visible green vegetation

Figure 2 : Field-level map of zoned fCover, segmentation of field-level fCover map

Pixagri is quite similar to Oenoview but it is dedicated to large crops e.g. wheat, soya, rape seed etc. It gives farming professionals more control over practices and inputs to achieve maximum profitability. 

The analysis of the Pixagri maps generates direct quality benefits by helping farmers to optimize investment and effort through:

• Farm diagnosis: inter-field and sub-field variations, identification of sources of variability, analysis to determine whether practices fit objectives.
• Support in optimizing practices to meet their short- and medium-term objectives.
• Monitoring implementation of new practices and their effectiveness.

Similarly to Oenoview, Pixagri is using the Overland™ software suite and uses also multispectral optical satellite imagery but with a coarser resolution less or equal to 20m. The ESA Sentinel 2 data will be perfectly adapted to Pixagri and should foster the development of the service both in terms of commercial footprint but also in terms of offer. In other words, the gratuity of the data will definitely ease the commercial development of the service and, in parallel, the richness of the spectral bands of the imagery will allow an improvement of the added-value products. Overland will indeed be able to process together the whole band set of the S2 data.

Thanks to the spectral richness of the data, major performance steps are expected:

• an accurate estimation of the crop Leaf Area Index (LAI), which quantifies the crop foliage and is the prime parameter to monitor crop development, even for high LAI values once canopy closure is reached.
• an accurate measurement of the leaf Chlorophyll Content (Chl), which quantifies the chlorophyll accumulated in the leaves and is a dynamic, key parameter to monitor plant nutrition and stress.
• an improved discrimination between soil and dry leaves, which allows to measure the senescent or diseased part of the crop foliage (Non-Photosynthetic Vegetation = NPV)

Pixagri customers are today located in North America and Central Europe while Oenoview customers are (so far) essentially located in France.

EUGENIUS

The EUGENIUS network is made of a set of European geo-information SMEs, implemented in European regions and expert in different thematic domains, who have decided to cooperate for building up an open network of commercial EO services platforms.

The objectives of EUGENIUS are:

• to assemble a generic and modular regional service platform able to deliver a set of operational, sustainable, standardized and QoS certified applications in a “series-mode” approach which answer the major stakes of the Land & Natural Resources Management field, by making maximum benefit of Copernicus data and more specifically Sentinel satellites technical performances and revisit capabilities
• to demonstrate that such a platform can be replicated in several European regions and networked to tackle the market potential of each region for such applications while ensuring lowest provision costs and more rapid delivery of EO based services thanks to a regional presence and to the reuse of well proven applicative tools
• to use applicative tools developed by a service provider located in a given European region for generating end products satisfying users’ needs in another region. That will be made possible thanks to the same kind of platform used for “hosting” the tool, “fed” by data relevant for this region, and to the setting up of a “cooperation agreement” between the “tool owner” and the “regional platform operator”.

Finally, with these three goals successfully achieved, the EUGENIUS technical and market concept should pave the way for a quick and “low investment demanding” deployment of EO applications using Sentinel images across Europe. A new kind of “business engine” for this EO downstream market, generated by a set of cooperating SMEs, and open to other ones will have been formed.

TerraNIS

Our current solutions include:

• Coastal and offshore site-specific design criteria studies.
• Planning & design of Operations.
• Integrated Services for Port Operations.
• Environmental Assessment Studies.

Hereto we use:

• Numerical modelling of weather, currents and sea surface waves using satellite obsevations.
• Remote sensing (mapping) services.
• Coastal mapping and monitoring.
• Contract research and software development services.
• State of the art IT technologies.

Our staff includes highly qualified physicists, mathematicians, information technology engineers and coastal engineers, all having 20 years of experience in the coastal and oceanographic sector.

Projects HERMESS is currently involved in include:

Open Data exploitation services. HERMESS focus is on developing and providing services to improve ocean current forecasts for operations at sea, enabling a dynamic optimization of shipping routes to improve efficiency and reduce fuel consumption (http://www.melodiesproject.eu/node/38)

Commercial satellite mission feasibility studies. HERMESS leads the commercial and technical feasibility of developing a commercial build small space system to provide value-added services related to bathymetry and ice. The technological, operational, commercial and user aspects of a dedicated nano satelliet based system are investigated.

Estimated ship arrival time service

Generally, arrival time assessments are based on the distance to port and the mean speed of the ship. Our service takes into account the wind, wave, and current conditions during the trip and the effects that they have on the speed.

User/Customer
Rotterdam harbour information broker

Background
Upon arrival of a ship in the harbor a quay needs to be free for offloading of for example containers or bulk products. For this purpose a time slot has been requested and hinterland transport arranged by for example barges or trains and trucks. A ship failing to arrive in time results in infra-structure not being used or last minute reallocation of resources.

Issue and needs
To optimize marine transport the current ship position has to be monitored and time to harbour estimated. The latter is influenced by MetOcean conditions along the planned shipping route and requires accurate weather forecasts and ship response parameters.

Proposed solution
To predict ship arrival time the effect of wind, waves and currents on its velocity is determined. Assessment of ship response parameters is based on actual shipping data and MetOcean conditions and does not require a dedicated complex physical model of the ship’s hydrodynamic behaviour. The technology combines near real-time ship data, MetOcean forecasts and the ship response parameters to predict sailing times. Ship position and speed are monitored using AIS technology. Historic AIS data and MetOcean data are analysed to assess ship speed related to ambient waves, wind and currents.

Industry perspective
The technology will increase efficiency in the maritime transport sector and ports. The service enables optimized use of harbour infrastructure and increase throughput capacity including use of hinterland connections.
The service is provided to support the maritime transport sector, ship owners and seaport authorities.

Reach-U has four fields of activity: mapping, geospatial data, geographical information systems (GIS) and mobile positioning.

In GIS software development area our uniqueness is the ability to deliver software together with the data that is fit for the purpose. Our software development is based on Mapinfo, Oracle and proprietary web mapping tools. Our optimization solutions for transport and logistics business offer guaranteed ROI by combining software, data and consultancy together.

In geospatial data area Reach-U owns and maintains the most detailed geospatial database of Estonia and the Baltic States. The accuracy is up to 1:2 000 in urban and 1:20 000 in rural areas, including building addresses. Streets and roads are connected to logical network, attributed with turn restrictions and other relevant data for logistical analysis.

Reach-U runs the biggest internet map server in the Baltic States since 1997. In addition to selling access to our own data, Reach-U renders geospatial data processing services to our clients. Clients are mostly utilities and the public sector.

Mapping unit creates hundreds of maps on demand based on Reach-U´s own database. Majority of tourist publications, information boards, wallmaps etc. feature cartographic products made by Reach-U. Reach-U publishes the best selling road atlases for Estonia. We are trained to make maps that are beautiful, readable and accurate at all scales and for all purposes.

The fourth area of activity is location-based services and mobile positioning middleware. Our unique company background delivers everything needed for launching location-based services, including software, maps and support. Our goal is to help our clients to achieve the record high usage numbers of their services, and in many countries they have done so. Reach-U has global sales and distribution agreement with Ericsson, our clients are mobile operators in Slovakia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Mexico, Ukraine and Estonia.

We are largest European provider of LBS to Mobile operators, covering 17 operators globally and serving 300 million subscribers. Our main product in this area is Demograft (http://www.demograft.com/solutions/) that has also won Global Mobile Award 2014 (http://www.demograft.com/demograft-wins-global-mobile-award-2014/)

Reach-U consolidates competences in the following areas and technologies:

Experience on putting geospatial data to work for enterprises

• Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
• Oracle Spatial
• Mapinfo programming
• Symbian development
• Geospatial database creation and maintenance
• Online access to geospatial data

Combining wireless, IT and location-based technology with content for mobile operators and service providers

• Mobile positioning
• Operator-grade Java development
• Location-based services

Creating user-friendly map products

• Cartographic design
• Map publishing

To sustain the competitive advantage of our products, Reach-U spends substantial amount of the revenue on R&D. We participate in number of EU FP6 projects.

Forest change monitoring service based on Sentinel 1a

Reach-U is starting the demonstration phase with Sentinel 1a based forest monitoring service.

Concept to use satellite images for forest change detection has been proved in many times in studies and in the market there are several companies providing forest monitoring service from commercial images. Our goal is to reduce the delivery time of forest alerts to two weeks and help the forest owners to make decision in critical times where waiting an overview of forest can’t be measured in months.

With the possibility from 3. October to get data from Sentinel data hub (https://scihub.esa.int/) we can move from testing phase of algorithms to live demonstration of the capabilities. As more data from Sentinel 1a comes available we can step by step widen the area where forest change alerts can be generated and put into validation.

Image1: Example of the forests alerts generated from Sentinel 1 data
Our focus is developing downstream services for forestry based on near real time satellite data. The goal is to involve forest owners (companies/institutes) in the validation phase of the service so that the added value could be tested.

Quality

Reach-U was founded in 1990 and has currently nearly 100 employees. Regio / Reach-U is ISO 9001:2008 certified.

Contact

CLOUDEO is dedicated to generating greater value from geodata by bringing together all those who create, interpret, and use it, including:

• Users of Geo-Services
• Developers of Geo-Services
• Providers of Geo-Software
• Providers of Geo-Data

CLOUDEO enables new business models for existing and new market players. Rather than making huge upfront investments in permanent licenses for software, IT and data, CLOUDEO users can now buy subscriptions and even 24/7 geo processing services on a pay-per-use basis at affordable prices, or enter into innovative revenue sharing schemes.

Data providers, software developers and service providers are enabled to market their products and services more easily and efficiently.

CLOUDEO GEO-COLLABORATION PLATFORM

CLOUDEO removes the current entry barriers to EO data usage, service development, and service delivery by developing and implementing EO specific cloud technology and new business models. The company is creating a professional geo-collaboration platform that will enable the growth of product-oriented, value-adding business and increase the use of EO data.

To this end, CLOUDEO is offering a geoinfrastructure as a service (Geo-IaaS) with four main elements:

• CLOUDEO Content Library – hosts geodata from many different data providers. It provides fast and easy access to data from many different data and content providers for your application development and service operations on CLOUDEO.
• CLOUDEO Apps Library – hosts applications from many different software developers where data users and service providers can find applications to help them interpret data and derive the information they need for their projects.
• CLOUDEO Processing Environment – a private user space for creating value-added products and services including CLOUDEO Workbench e.g. virtual desktop (see http://store.cloudeo-ag.com/cloudeo-workbench) when interactivity is needed or CLOUDEO Factory when machine to machine is needed.
• CLOUDEO Store – an online marketplace for data, software, and services that makes it possible to purchase one-off downloads, subscriptions, and even 24/7 geoprocessing services.

CLOUDEO PARTNER REFERENCE CASES
Hydrology – EOMAP GmbH & Co.KG
Fire Monitoring – RSS GmbH

Testimonials

“We are always looking for innovative and cost-effective ways for offering our solutions to a wide range of organizations that need to easily visualize and leverage geospatial data for enhanced decision-making”. Though our partnership with CLOUDEO, we will be able to offer our solutions through a unique online portal in a cloud-based environment, which will further expand the overall reach of our solutions to a wider user base.” Mladen Stojic, President, Hexagon Geospatial.

“CLOUDEO’s service opens up great new possibilities to reach our customers more easily, with less administrative effort. We are sure to get new customers with it. The easy-to-access web store solution is an especially customer-oriented and well-designed platform.” Dr. Thomas Heege, CEO, EOMAP.

“CLOUDEO’s unique geo-collaboration portal provides all of the elements our customers need to develop a professional service easily and enable a fast market entry and ROI. That’s why we have decided to be CLOUDEO partner.” Dave Hodgson, CEO, DMCii.

Contact:

CloudEO AG, Satellite Office, Ludwigstrasse 8, 80539 Munich, Germany +49 89 206 021 166 sales@cloudeo-ag.com www.cloudeo-ag.com http://store.cloudeo-ag.com

ELECNOR DEIMOS Imaging (DMI) is a private Spanish company, whose mission is to become one of the world leading providers of Earth Observation data and remote sensing applications. DMI is the company devoted to Earth Observation within ELECNOR DEIMOS, the technology division of Elecnor, one of the largest Spanish industrial corporations. Specialized in the design, implementation, operation and commercial exploitation of Earth Observation Systems, DMI is focused to the development, generation and delivery of remote sensing products and services. DMI is also a reseller of data from third party missions, including UK-DMC2, RapidEye and the Kompsat 2/3/5 series. DMI has been awarded the “Newcomer Earth Observation Operator of the Year” at Euroconsult’s Earth Observation Business Week in Paris in September 2013.

ELECNOR DEIMOS Imaging owns and operates DEIMOS-1, the first Spanish Earth Observation satellite. Launched in 2009, it collects a 650km swath of 3-band, 22m resolution imagery. The DEIMOS-1 satellite, member of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC), is among the world leading sources of high resolution data. DEIMOS-1 provides, among other things, yearly coverages of Africa to the European Copernicus programme, bimonthly coverages of US lower 48 states to the US Department of Agriculture for crop season monitoring, and monthly coverages of Spain to the Spanish government.

ELECNOR DEIMOS Imaging will add the new DEIMOS-2 satellite to its EO system by mid-2014. DEIMOS-2 is a very-high resolution, agile satellite capable of providing 4-bands multispectral and 75-cm pan-sharpened imagery, with a 12-km swath. The whole end-to-end DEIMOS-2 system has been designed to provide a cost-effective and highly responsive service to cope with the increasing need of fast access to very-high resolution imagery. Its ground segment, which includes three receiving/commanding ground stations in Spain and Norway, has been completely developed in-house by Elecnor Deimos.

Deimos1 & Deimos-2

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

24/7/365 Service: Highly responsive, reliable and fast service for rush tasking, delivery and processing of DEIMOS -1 and DEIMOS -2 satellites

Ground Receiving Stations: Direct and Virtual Receiving Stations available, providing easy, fast and cost-effective access to large amount of data obtained from high-frequency coverages.

Rental of satellite capacity: through tailored rental schemes, the user is provided direct access to the Mission Planning System, and can directly task the satellite.

Continent-wide, high-resolution coverages: DEIMOS-1 is optimized to generate high-resolution, frequent coverages over very large areas, such as countries or continents.

• Powerful source of geo-information
• Immediate availability
• Framed to match your area of interest
• Attractively priced
• Fast integration into your GIS and Google Earth Enterprise solutions, fully compatible with your referenced databases
• Ideal for land cover/use classifications and crop related studies

DEIMOS-1 2011 Mosaic of Sub-Saharian Africa

Very-high resolution imagery: the Kompsat-2, 3 and 5 and, from Q2 2014, the DEIMOS-2 satellite, provide a unique virtual constellation with both optical and radar satellites which assures frequent revisit of any spot on Earth, at different local times.

Tailored VAP Products and Services:

• DEIMOS-1 Flood Mapping Services, including pre-flood imaging, emergency activations, post-flood imaging, retrieval of flood maps and corresponding statistics. Thanks to the large size of DEIMOS-1 images and its low revisit times, the status of a certain area can be evaluated before, during and after the flood event.
• DEIMOS-1 Fire Mapping Services, including imagery prior, during and post the fire event, emergency activations, retrieval of fire maps and its statistics, and further recovery evolution on burn scars in the short and medium term periods.

Forest fire of La Jonquera, Spain, July 2012: DEIMOS-1 natural color and multiemporal imagery

• Vegetation Indexes: including NDVI, SAVI, IPVI, MSAVI2, GEMI among others more ellaborated, like LAI and FPAR. Related to plant phenology, water balance, CO2 exchange and net productivity, they represent key vegetation biophysical properties.

DEIMOS-1 natural color image of irrigated crops in Corcoran, CA, June 2012

RELEVANT PROJECTS

ELECNOR DEIMOS Imaging has gained a strong experience in product development and delivery to public and private customers worldwide. Among its main projects:

• Provision of Deimos-1 data for USDA annual campaign in US. Biweekly coverage of the CONUS area with Deimos-1 and UK-DMC2 has been delivered to USDA during the 2011, 2012 and 2013 crop seasons, and used for the generation of crop type maps and crop monitoring services.

DEIMOS-1/UK-DMC2 coverages of the US during 2011 and 2012 crop seasons

• Provision of cloud-free coverage of Africa with Deimos-1 for GMES/Copernicus Data Warehouse CORE Service. Deimos-1 data collected in 2011 and 2012, and covering all countries of Sub-Saharian Africa, has been delivered to ESA to be used in the frame of GDW.
• Provision of Deimos-1 data for FARMSTAR service in France. DMI manages yearly a campaign to monitor the French agricultural areas with Deimos-1 and UK-DMC2, and delivers data to AirbusGeo which provides the FARMSTAR service to farmers nationwide.
• ISAC, Information Service on Agricultural Change (FP7): set up of a service for crop monitoring, damage and risk assessment based on high resolution Deimos-1 and Landsat images. Demonstration countries are Spain, Belgium and Ethiopia. Target users are the insurance sector and the food security sector (micro-insurances and early warning).
• AGRICAB (FP7): AGRICAB builds on Geonetcast, connecting satellite data and predictive models in the context of GEO (Group on Earth Observations).

Examples of DEIMOS-1 crop monitoring service

POINT OF CONTACT
ELECNOR DEIMOS Imaging
Parque Tecnológico de Boecillo, Edificio Galileo, Modulo Gris, 103
47151 Boecillo (Valladolid)
Spain
Phone: +34 983 548 923
comercial@deimos-imaging.com
www.deimos-imaging.com

The list hereinafter describes some of the projects carried out by VisioTerra:

Software development

• Whale Web portal – Leading a consortium of research institutes for “Assessing cetacean populations and important cetacean habitats in Bay of Bengal and Icelandic shelf large marine ecosystems”. Production of a virtual globe for this project.
• VTGoce: Virtual globe to compare and combine surfaces – Tool enabling to compare and combine altimetry surfaces. Application to the geoids produced by the GOCE satellite.
• VTAOIWatcher: Near real-time monitoring – Tool monitoring areas of interest and providing with near real-time images that are processed on the flight.
• VTGeomorpho: Morpho-structural analysis – Production of serial profiles and wrapping surfaces from various altimetry models.

Fig. 1 – Windows used for profile edition in VTGeomorpho and Fig.2. – Windows used in the wrapping surfaces generation

• VTExpotKMZ: Export of “super-layers” – Production of KMZ “super-layers” for the Google Earth display of for an e-mail controlling the size of the product.
• VTEscape: Surface parameters – Tool producing spacemaps containing physical parameters of the Earth surface: ‑atmosphere (wind fields, pressures, clouds…), ‑ocean (sea surface temperatures, currents, salinity…), ‑lands (reflectance, land-use, moisture…).

Fig. 3 – ECMWF pressure displayed on Google Earth.

• VTAOIBuilder: Area Of Interest builder – Development of a tool to create areas of interest of various types: –bounding box, ‑disk, ‑corridor, ‑polygon.
• VTAOICatcher: Acquisition prediction – Development of a tool enabling to select the missions / instruments observing a particular area of interest for a given period.

Fig.4 : Results of a search performed on Gabon boundaries

• VTTileGrabber: Virtual Globe Capture – Development of a tool enabling the capture of the layers displayed along a session of navigation in a virtual globe. Production of a geocoded mosaic of the observed tiles.
• VTSatelliteTracker: Orbit propagation and virtual globes– Development of a Web tool to display in virtual globes the satellite models, propagated orbits, instrument viewing vectors, and on-ground swaths.

Studies

• ERAIFT Capacity building of the geomatics laboratory:Field survey and reporting for the capacity building of the Geomatics Laboratory of the ERAIFT regional school in Kinshasa, DRC.
• TOTAL: Cryosat over Arctic – Study of the potential of satellite data to . monitor the environment in very cold areas.
• TOTAL: Radar / optic coupling – Development and validation of methods to retrieve the optical signature of hydrocarbons from slicks detected by radar.
• TOTAL: Detection of offshore wind fields from radar images – Development and validation of methods to detect wind fields at the surface of the sea from radar images.
• TOTAL: Oil seeps detection – Development and validation of methods to detect offshore oil seeps from wide field radar images.
• TOTAL: E.O. Portal – Edition of Intranet pages specialised in Earth Observation (EO) defining the missions, instruments, programmes, events, agenda, spatial agencies, organisations… together with associated courses.
• REMA / World Bank: REMA Biodiversity Information System (RBIS) – Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA) – Support for the management of the RBIS from the invitation to tender up to the software development, data organization and trainings.
• TOTAL: Multitemporal study of flooded areas – Analysis of the yearly cycle within the period 2006-2009. Classification of marsh zones and detection of anomalies due to anthropic activities.
• TOTAL: Coastal erosion of Mandji peninsula – Compilation and accurate geocoding of optic and radar data (satellite and aerial photographs) acquired along the last 35 years. Photo-interpretation of coastal lines and development of tools to quantify erosions / accretions.
• SIARCE / AIR: Audit of the SIGNE GIS – Assessment of the functionalities, document, manpower and computer resources of the GIS for the management of the Essonne basin. Editing of recommendations for the system extension.
• ESA-ESRIN: GOCE L1b Products User Handbook – Editing of a second version of the handbook describing the acquisition physics, the algorithms, and the products of the gravimeter and positioning instruments onboard GOCE.

Fig.5 : Trajectory and reference frames.

• ESA / Brockmann Consult: CAL/VAL Portal – Generic description of missions and instruments using the SensorML language to support Calibration / Validation activities performed by the CEOS group.
• TOTAL: Study of Google Earth – Study, training and demonstrations of Google Earth for the fulfillment of business requirements in the domains of oil exploration, environment management and infrastructures.
• ESA-ESRIN: MERIS Product Handbook – Enhancement and correction of the MERIS product handbook introducing FAQ, applications and level 3 descriptions.
• DGA / Générale d’Infographie: Georeferencing study – Inventory of technical solutions and research actors in the field of georeferencing.
• ESA-ESTEC: MERIS Geometry handbook – This handbook details the viewing geometry and provides algorithms and programs to orthorectify MERIS images from elevation ancillary data or external DEM.
• ESA-ESTEC: DEM Quality assessment – Elevations found in ACE (ERS-1/2 Altimetry Corrected Elevations) and in SRTM30 are compared and assessed using external elevation values. Visual inspections results are also reported within a technical note.
• SPOT IMAGE: Scientific editing of DIMAP format – Enhancement of DIMAP documentation by providing explanations, equations and figures of the viewing model. HTML pages (397 items) are automatically generated from XML schemas and style sheets.
• ESA-ESRIN / CNES: SPOT Vegetation / Envisat MERIS – Complementarity and comparison – Analysis of radiometry and geometry performances of both instruments. Paper presented on 2nd SPOT Vegetation Workshop (Antwerp, 12-14 March 2004).

Training

• Douala University (Cameroun): Remote sensing and image processing – Knowledge control and bringing up to standard in the framework of « Open and remote trainings » (project FOAD of AUF).
• INP (Gabon): Spatial geometry algorithms – Ecole du Cadastre of the Institut National de Cartographie (INC) in Libreville. Reminders of geodesy and spatial mechanics. Detailed presentation of algorithms for the geocoding and orthorectification of optic and radar Earth observation images.
• UNEP: Remote sensing and GIS for hazard mapping – Advanced training and ArcGIS practice to setup a « Hazard mapping » GIS, to process optical and Radar images, digital elevation models, and to produce thematic maps by the Forestry Department of Myanmar.
• TOTAL « Image processing » and « Georeferencing » trainings – « Image processing » : physics, instruments, pseudo-color and color compositions, LUT transform, filtering, fusion. – « Georeferencing»: geodesy, referentials, spatial mechanics, image products, optical and Radar orthorectification.
• Algerian Universities: Geometry of remote sensing images – Communication in the universities of Constantine and M’Sila. Processing of Landsat scenes in the region of Constantine.
• PDVSA / BEICIP: Remote Sensing Training applied to Oil Exploration – Training of PDVA’s managers for the acquisition, processing and interpretation of Earth observation data.
• ESA / Palestinian Universities: Remote Sensing Training and GIS in Palestine – In collaboration with the University of Marne-la-Vallée and with the support of the European Space Agency, VisioTerra has built a GIS of Palestine that has been presented to the universities of Al-Quds, Naplouse and Hebron.

GIS layers elaborated for the Palestinian Universities

Cartographic production

• UNEP / OBSCOM: Urban growth in Ivory Coast – Production of LU/LC classification spacemaps and statistics to monitor the urban growth of the cities of Abidjan and Bouake in Ivory Coast.
• Dobbin International / OBSCOM: LU/LC of Mozambique – Production of LU/LC classification spacemaps of 5 provinces of Mozambique from Landsat scenes and field data. Production of radar scenes. Orthorectification of SPOT scenes.
• Rio Tinto / OBSCOM: Production of LU/LC maps in Guinea – Geocoding and processing of Landsat, Radar and digital elevation models (DEM) to produce Land Use / Land Cover (LU/LC) maps from field data and supervised classifications.
• TOTAL: Massive production of radar geocoded data – Geocoding and processing of radar segments and scenes to make easier the photo-interpretation of hydrocarbon slicks over the sea.
• TOTAL: World / Africa / South Africa posters – Production and processing of three posters (diameter 5m and 7m) displayed on the TOTAL stand at the AAPG 2008 workshop in Cap Town (South Africa).
• TOTALWorld poster – Production and processing of a 5×10m poster displayed on the TOTAL stand at the EAGE 2008 workshop in Rome.
• WCS / OBSCOM: Afghanistan eastern complex forest mapping – Production of a SPOT-5 / SPOT-4 mosaic over Afghanistan. Assessment and processing of SRTM defects.
• UNEP: OPTEC Gaza – Processing, control and preparation of data for the inventory of land cover in Gaza Band.
• Gaz de France: Landsat ETM+ Libya – Processing, production and restitution of Landsat ETM+ spacemaps for the photo-interpretation of structural geology.
• TOTAL: JERS Colombia – Geocoding, pre-processing and quality control of 38 JERS-scenes.
• Morocco Marble Exploration: Envisat ASAR + Landsat ETM+ synthesis – Geocoding and merging of RADAR and optical images to support photo-interpretation for the detection of marble veins in Moroccan Atlas.

Communication

• Cité des Sciences: « Objectif Earth » – presentation during the « week of the science » of the best-of Earth observation images. Explanation of the acquisition techniques, data processing and applications.
• Bandit Manchot: E-commerce website setting up – Graphic elaboration, shop window, goods database, shopping basket, special offers, customers accounts, orders, quick browsing… from Oscommerce.
• ICE: Communication support – Elaboration of the graphic charter, company presentation leaflet and partners business cards.
• LAPIDEM: Google Earth website – Presentation of the architecture projects within dynamic web pages and display of the projects in the Google Earth virtual globe.

Partners

VisioTerra maintains cooperation with industry, universities and research organisations:

• GAEL Consultant: a software company specialised in software development for EO data processing. VisioTerra is granted the right to upgrade and maintain the TELIMAGO software owned by GAEL Consultant.
• University of Marne La Vallée: Image processing, Data fusion, Geodesy, Remote sensing projects courses are given by VisioTerra staff.
• ENSG (IGN): Supervision of PhDs and DEA students in collaboration with «Geographic Information Sciences» department.
• University Paris VI: Collaboration with Geology department.
• VisioTerra is member of the associations OGC, AFIGEO, SFPT, and EARSC

Technical facilities and scientific environment
VisioTerra is located at the high technology pole of Marne-La-Vallée, located around 15 minutes from Paris. The immediate environment includes the University Paris-Est Marne-La-Vallée, the school of Ponts-et-Chaussée, the national school of geographic sciences, ESIEE, the school Louis Lumière and many other establishments of training and research
VisioTerra uses its proper computing power and the TELIMAGO image processing software, which is continuously upgraded to better carry out studies and cartographic production.

Visioterra
14 rue Albert Einstein 77420 Champs-sur-Marne, France
Phone:+33 9 6130 6628. Email. Website

The main business idea of the company is development and implementation of “robotic” automated processing work-flows, capable of processing large amounts of data in short time and with low human interaction – therefore with high efficiency and at a low cost – taking advantage of remotely-operated computing systems, or even “external boxes” established for the clients and integrated into their technological work-flows. This is why the company positions itself as the one capable of doing “extreme” geo-computing.

GEOMATRIX UAB is an advanced user and passionate advocate of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), trying to develop efficient and competitive industrial geo-computing solutions without using any commercial software. We have established an ergonomic, but highly-productive true 64-bit multi-processing environment, based on Linux OS, GRASS GIS, GDAL/OGR libraries, etc. System re-programming techniques are used to combine Linux shell components and utilities with professional GIS/RS software functions, libraries and tools, binding them into automated data processing work-flows, designed to utilize full computing power down to the last processor core or bit of memory.

The first successful project of the company was development of an operational mapping solution for a Swiss company PASSAM AG for processing and representation of air quality monitoring data collected in Lithuania by using passive sorbents sampling method. Thousands of operational maps were produced by automated scripts and delivered to the clients as digital images via FTP or on-line repositories. Automated operational mapping approach can be used in a broad range of projects for representation, analysis and quality control of large thematic datasets collected in many sampling sites – an ideal solution for large environmental monitoring networks, emergency response services, field data collection and analysis, etc.

Development of automated parallel computing work-flows for processing of large amounts of vector and raster datasets, particularly high and very high resolution satellite imagery, is currently the most important activity of the company. Back in 2011, we developed a series of automated work-flows for extraction of water bodies from IMAGE 2006, which was successfully applied by the Institute of Aerial Geodesy (Lithuania) for the production of GMES Reference Datasets of hydrographic network over 38 European countries. A year later we started the production of high resolution layers of Water and Wetlands from high resolution satellite imagery over the EEA39 territory for the EEA within a GMES Initial Operations (GIO-Land) project . Both projects are coordinated by Spanish company Indra Espacio SA.

The company has developed a series of efficient production work-flows for automated pre-processing of standard satellite imagery products (data format/type conversion, re-projection, ortho-rectification, mosaicking, extraction/manipulation of bands, pan-sharpening, metadata extraction, thumbnailing, renaming, packaging, cloud masking/patching). Although rather simple, such routine operations may require a substantial amount of time and resources, if carried out manually on a larger number of images. Therefore automated pre-processing of satellite imagery has become a standard practice. Experience in this field allowed the company to take part in an FP7 project LAMPRE, currently developing a GMES downstream services on landslide modeling, vulnerability assessment, preparedness and recovery management.

Examples of products

Illustration of the RapidEye image pan-sharpening work-flow: left image – the original RapidEye level 3A product (fragment of Panevėžys town in Lithuania) taken on 2011-08-27 by RE-1 sensor, shown in RGB-542 false color composit; middle image – panchromatic image with 1 m pixel resolution produced of a series of color aerial photo images with 0.5 m pixels; right image – pan-sharpened RapidEye image produced in 1 m pixel resolution and RGB-541 false color composit

A series of accumulative biophysical products of Slovakia made in a full-scale IRS-6 resolution. Source: IMAGE2006/2009/2012

The main projects:

• Operational mapping of air quality
• GMES Initial Operations, GIO-Land
• GMES downstream services on landslides, FP7 LAMPRE

Data processing services:

• Production of bio-physical parameters
• Change detection by the use of VHR imagery
• Pan-sharpening of VHR imagery
• LIDAR data processing

Contact information:
Address: Technopolis, Europos pr. 121, LT-46339 Kaunas, Lithuania
http://www.geomatrix.lt
e-mail: info@geomatrix.lt
tel.: +370-699-99940
fax.: +370-37-211382|

Summary

Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) in Tromsø, Norway, has since 1998 been a world leading provider of an operational near real-time service using satellite radar data to detect oil discharges and locate potential polluters. Extensive experience, close integration with satellite owners and end-users, and continuous innovation has made the KSAT oil spill detection service a World Class service. The development has undergone several phases R&D, through demonstrations and pilot projects with involvement from the end-users, onto todays operational utilisation. National and European (ESA) programs were important during the initial phases. The service is today used by national authorities, offshore oil and gas industry and by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) on behalf of the European coastal states.

Issues and needs

Discharges of oil from ships, oil platforms and other sources can cause significant damage to coastlines and the marine environment in general. It is not always the largest spills that cause the worst damage, as the timing and location of a spill can sometimes be more critical impact determinants than the volume of oil introduced. Satellite radar (SAR) data can provide wide area monitoring day and night and operate independently of weather conditions and is an excellent tool for detecting oil films on the sea surface, either independently or in combination with other data.

Oil companies have a high degree of environmental awareness, social responsibility and reputation is also an important issue. Some have been accused of illegal discharges that are actually caused by dumping from bypassing ship traffic, and the service information can provide valuable documentation in case of such false accusations. The satellite based service is used for self monitoring and early warning of accidental leakages from offshore installations, or just for documentation of clean seas in areas.

The KSAT satellite oil spill monitoring service has been developed in cooperation with users, including the Norwegian offshore industry, the Norwegian Coastal Administration, the Swedish Coast Guard, the Finnish Environmental Institute, the Admiral Danish Fleet and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) of the UK. Since 2007 EMSA has contracted a satellite monitoring service, CSN, to the European service industry and KSAT has been a lead partner since the beginning.

The solution

The customer is responsible to define the areas to be monitored and the monitoring frequency. It is then up to KSAT to assure the availability of the satellite data for reception a KSAT ground station for further processing, and analysis. Time is crucial for and the KSAT oil spill analysis results and satellite images are delivered to the customer within 30 to 120 minutes after satellite acquisition, depending on satellite and user requirements.

KSAT utilises satellite data in combination with additional data to identify and discriminate oil slicks from other phenomenon in the image, pin-point the location, estimate the size and assign a confidence parameter and identify a potential source. Vessel traffic information such as terrestrial and satellite AIS (Automatic Identification System) is used for identifying possible pollution source(s). Information on offshore installations and metocean conditions (wind, waves) is also useful as support for discriminating man made slick and identifying possible polluters.

The KSAT service is provided twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week. By using our global ground network in combination with the agreements with the satellite operators we can provide very fast access to global satellite radar data, both under normal circumstances and in case of emergencies. If an oil spill is detected an alert message is delivered to the customer, either as a phone message, email report or SMS message depending on customer preference. Each customer also has access to a dedicated web portal with information on all data and products delivered.

The result of the analysis distributed to the customer includes:

• Time of observation
• Position in Latitude/Longitude.
• Confidence assignment of the identified spill.
• If a potential source could be identified, this information is included in the message.
• Predicted wind information from numerical models
• SAR based wind information

The KSAT web portal provides access to the oil spill service, and offers data search and retrieval functionality, map based dynamic and interactive viewing, overlaying of datasets, interactive user reporting facilities and some data manipulation functions, as illustrated herein.

KSAT supports most commercial satellites today, e.g. including Radarsat, Cosmo-Skymed and TerraSAR, but also optical missions. The actual selection might be a function of the coverage frequency at a specific location, the delivery times, local and national regulatory requirements, and budgetary constraints. KSAT has a broad expertise to carefully match what is technically possible in a given location to the needs and capabilities of the end user. 

In case of a large incident, KSAT can include additional satellites to increase the monitoring frequency, introducing optical satellite coverage, or modifying the defined area of interest. This was demonstrated during the large accident in the Gulf of Mexico.

Figure 1: SAR image from the west coast of Norway. An oil spill is visible in the middle of the image, and several vessels are also detected. The AIS positions with tracks (indicated as icons with green boats and green lines) are overlaid the image, and the potential source is identified. Copyrigth raw data ESA, 2009

Results and perspectives

Satellite radars are in general capable to detect oil spills at wind speeds ranging from app 5m/s up to 18 m/s. The detected features include mostly mineral oil, but also plant oil, fish oil, chemical spills and algae blooms. Three different confidence categories are assigned to a spill, Low, Medium or High, depending upon a set of observation feature and sea state description criteria. User verifications show that more than 2/3 of the reported High confidence spills are real spills. These customers use the service information to coordinate and perform more efficient operations of the surveillance aircrafts.

Identification of the potential source has become very important for the users. KSAT uses AIS data in combination with the satellite radar to identify and report about who might be the most likely polluting source. It is then up the user to take the next step for final identification and eventual prosecution. The figures show examples of the detected and reported features, as well as examples of combined use of satellite and AIS data.

The KSAT multimission service utilises in principle any satellite radar mission, as opposite to those relying only on a single mission. This showed very useful when Envisat was lost, where KSAT could continue to support the customers by using Radarsat and TerraSAR. Recently KSAT has included global data reception and processing capabilities for Cosmo-Skymed.

KSAT has been a pioneer in developing the service since its start. The service reliability is accepted among the customers, and new missions like Sentinel-1 and Radarsat Constellation will ensure service continuity. KSAT were the lead provider in establishing the European use and since then we have focused on the global market. Today KSAT is serving customers in Europe as well as in America, Asia and Australia. For the coming years we expect a strong global growth, and KSAT will be present to serve these markets.

Figure 2: Pipeline rupture outside India. January 2011. Radarsat satellite radar image (upper) and aerial photo documentation (lower). Copyright raw data MacDonaldDettweiler, 2011

About

Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) in Tromsø, Norway, is a world leading provider of Earth Observation services and satellite Ground Station services. The company has been involved in satellite operations from Tromsø for over 40 years and has through several projects and service contracts demonstrated that radar satellites is an efficient tool to provide early warning to offshore operators and to assist national authorities in detecting oil discharges and locating potential polluters.

Points of Contact
Kongsberg Satellite Services, KSAT
Prestvannveien 38, BO Box 6180
N-9291 Tromsø
Norway
Phone: +47 776 00 250
sales@ksat.no
www.ksat.no