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I2BF Global Ventures has supplied Dauria Aerospace, a Russian satellite manufacturer and services provider, with $20m for its series-B funding round.

The funds will be used as working capital for Dauria’s existing contracts, as well as for the development of the company’s technology and towards new satellite platforms.

I2BF stated it invested in Dauria due to the increasing importance of the aerospace sector. I2BF believes the sector could have a positive effect on the agricultural industry, as well as disaster prevention and water control, due to Dauria’s development of observational technology for satellites.

I2BF is a venture capital firm with offices in New York, London, Moscow, Dubai and Kazakhstan. The firm predominantly invests in companies operating in the cleantech space.

Company
Founded in 2011, Dauria is headquartered in Moscow with additional facilities in the DLR incubator in Munich and the NASA Ames Research Park in California.

The company manufactures micro- and nano-satellites, as well as developing machine-to-machine wireless communication and earth observation technology. Dauria’s technology is designed to be a low-cost offering of infrastructure for the monitoring of ground activity.

Dauria’s satellites work alongside the company’s CloudEO product, a cloud-based platform that imports geo-data and allows developers to utilise and analyse it.

The company is due to start production of its first satellite this year, a project that is supported by the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos.

People
Mikhail Kokorich is the president and founder of Dauria, while Sergey Ivanov is the CEO. Ilya Golubovich is a founding partner of I2BF.

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800+ defence and intelligence professionals will be attending the Defence Geospatial Intelligence (DGI) 2014 meeting, taking place in London, 21-23 January. They will be learning from the best in the community, meeting cutting edge solution providers, networking with their peers and benchmarking against the world’s most progressive defence organisations.

The speaker line-up really reads like the who’s who of the community. This is your annual opportunity to hear and learn from the thought-leaders in the community on their needs and requirements:

  • General Richard Barrons, Commander, Joint Forces Command, UK MOD will present his vision of the future role of intelligence and geospatial data in defence and contingency planning.
  • AVM Jon Rigby CBE, Director Cyber, Intelligence and Information Integration, UK MOD will be discussing how to approach intelligence, data and geo support in contingency planning to ensure maximum security and operational capability.
  • Maria Fernandez, Director, Australia Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation will be leading a panel discussion on strategies and tactics for nations and agencies to manage defence intelligence resources more effectively.
  • Major General J.M.C. Rousseau, CMM, CD, Chief of Defence Intelligence, National Defence & The Canadian Forces will address the importance of GEO INT and multi-Int collaboration in Canadian Defence Intelligence and how to achieve true interoperability and collaboration with allies

Why attend?

Network – forge new relationships with key decision makers from across the value chain of defence and intelligence

Learn from the best in the community and in the industry – get under the skin of the strategies driving the most advanced defence and government organisations

Benchmark – stay on top of the latest trends in defence, intelligence, geo, data and a cyber security to ensure you keep your strategy on-track

Source suppliers and test new solutions – discover and try out game changing products and make the right investment for your business

Request your copy of the conference agenda to find out how DGI can benefit you and your team – email us on dgi@wbr.co.uk
Alternatively, register directly online www.dgieurope.com

05-09 MAY 2014, Geneva, Switzerland.

An excellent opportunity for geospatial users, policy-makers, technology providers, researchers, academicians and students, to present technology trends, case studies, research work and technical papers to the global audience.

Abstracts are invited on the following topics or any other topic relevant to the geospatial Industry :
Construction and Infrastructure
Climate Change
Energy
Health
Agriculture
Open Data
Disaster Management
Business Intelligence
Big Data
Cloud Computing
3D
Local Governance
Sensors
Earth Observation Systems

Submission Deadline : 1st November, 2013

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

  • Ministerial Panel
  • Program on LIS for Smart Cities in partnership with UN ECE
  • Program on Geospatial Industry Forging Ties with GEOSS
  • Workshop on Project Management & ROI by URISA
  • Focus on Multilateral Agencies by UNITAR
  • Joint Research Commission’s (JRC) focus on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies
  • Focused sessions on Agriculture, Energy and Building
  • Swiss Day by Swisstopo and SITG

Website : www.geospatialworldforum.org Email: info@geospatialworldforum.org

(September 2013) According to a new market research report “Precision Farming Market by Technology (GPS/GNSS, GIS, Remote Sensing & VRT), Components (Automation & Control, Sensors, FMS), Applications (Yield Monitoring, VRA, Mapping, Soil Monitoring, Scouting) – Global Forecast & Analysis (2013 – 2018)” published by MarketsandMarkets, the overall Global precision farming market will be worth $3,721.27 million by 2018, at an estimated CAGR of 13.36%

LogoBrowse 94 market data tables and 64 figures spread through 327 pages and in-depth TOC on “Precision Farming Market – Global Forecast & Analysis (2013 – 2018)”.

Markets and Markets

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report.

The ever increasing global food demands and environmental issues have plagued the countries across the globe; there are growing concerns to tackle both the issues, simultaneously. In this challenging situation, precision farming presents a way ahead by offering increasing yields, and at the same time, reducing the wastage and environmental degradation. Precision farming is a technology based in- field management system that optimizes the overall farming practices and input resources. The major drivers for the global Precision Farming Market are profitability & enhancement in the yields, government assistance, energy & cost saving, and the growing agro industry. The restraints for the growth of this market are high initial investments, and lack of technical know-how. The UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and penetration by broadband and mobile technologies are the key opportunities in the Precision Farming Market.

Precision Farming Market report categorizes the market on the basis of technologies, components, applications, and geography. It also covers the forecast revenue from 2013 to 2018 for the overall market, as well as, for all the segments covered in the report. http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/precision-farming-market-1243.html

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UAS

A Scottish space technology start-up firm financed on “credit cards and pub gigs” is in line for two major European awards for its work on Earth observation and GPS technology.

Steve Lee, an Edinburgh University-trained astrophysicist, started Stevenson Astrosat on a shoestring to fulfil a lifelong passion for “inventing things and building them in my own company”. He told the Sunday Herald that being shortlisted for the European Space Agency’s Copernicus and Galileo awards – the winners will be announced in Munich in November – was an important step in the company’s ability to attract investment and international recognition.

The Musselburgh-based firm won the Copernicus environmental challenge award last year for ThermCERT, a thermal and carbon efficiency reporting tool which uses space-derived data to increase the quality of thermal output measurements.

Lee said he still gigs as a pub guitarist “as a hobby”, despite the firm achieving a substantial six-figure sum in its first year, which it expects to double next year.

He said that Scotland’s thriving and “highly collaborative” cluster of space companies, which also includes Glasgow-based ClydeSpace, Star-Dundee and the UK Astronomy Technology Centre at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, was riding a boom in privately-funded investment in space and satellite technology, after reduced spending by national agencies brought new sources of funding into the market. “We’re finally starting to get attention, to find investment and find customers, and are ready to start eating into other parts of space industry. I expect Astrosat to start touching on [turnover of] seven figures next year.”

Astrosat specialises in Earth observation and satellite communications technology, the latter particularly focused in the Arctic. The firm, which has had what it calls “phenomenal support” from Scottish Enterprise, is working with manufacturers and technologists in Latvia, a centre of the Soviet space programme now left with a residue of specialised expertise.

Lee said: “We exported from the beginning because that’s the nature of space, no such thing as borders. We built our foundations in the Baltic states and by the time we came back to Scotland we found that everyone had heard of us, which allowed us to start working with partners.

“We have now got three divisions and are winning innovation prizes … We’ve come up with scores of ideas, which have led to our securing funding for incubation. We dream of being a cross-industry company, and also a kind of research and development centre for the industry in Scotland working with other good friends outside the company.

“A lot of our business is supporting classic Scottish technology – not only are we designing ships that are spinning around the world, we’re also supporting tidal and wave technology.”

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In support of high-resolution satellite data application by environmental education organizations the Open Landscape Partnership Platform (www.openlandscape.info) is planned to be launched at the end of 2013. This was announced on October 1 at the 6th International Conference “Earth from Space – the Most Effective Solutions”.


The Open Landscape Partnership Platform (OLPP) is a joint initiative of satellite data providers, distributers, value-added processors, and end users across the world aimed at creating a vibrant global community of practice that would significantly expand competent demand for affordable open access to very high spatial and temporal resolution satellite data (2 meters and one month or better) that could be suitable for wide-ranging, sustained non-profit use in the interests of public accountability, transparency and sustainability of land/natural resource management and conservation practices across jurisdictions at a critical landscape, habitat, and hotspot level.

In support of high-resolution satellite data application by environmental education organizations the Open Landscape Partnership Platform (www.openlandscape.info) is planned to be launched at the end of 2013. This was announced on October 1 at the 6th International Conference “Earth from Space – the Most Effective Solutions”.

The Platform was presented by Andrei Kushlin, Program Manager of the Global Tiger Initiative of the World Bank (USA ) and Dmitry Aksenov, General Director of NGO “Transparent World” (Russia). The aim of the program is to strengthen the public monitoring of environmental “hot spots” and of nature protection landscapes of our planet and to conduct their monitoring.

To increase the efficiency of environmental management, reasonable handling of natural resources within the protected natural areas, of valuable forests and rare landscapes with unique species composition the organizers of the “Open Landscape” program plan to use multi-temporal high resolution satellite images and the advanced crowd-mapping technology (drawing maps applying efforts of a wide range of volunteers around the world) and open monitoring tools.

The “Open Landscape” program first of all will assist the existing and fledgling partnerships between local universities and non-profit organizations in Russia and other countries, engaged in land use solutions (such as national parks and other protected natural areas, municipalities, departments of regional planning, local forest subdivisions and hunting farms, etc.), who are interested in the responsible management of critical habitat areas.

“Open Landscape” program organizers will provide the following to such partnerships: – Available sets of high resolution satellite images for the areas of interest for free, under standard license term;

- A user-friendly software for reception, archiving, pre-processing and in-depth thematic analysis of satellite images;

- Training programs on the basics of data processing, analysis and interpretation of satellite images, as well as on crowd-mapping techniques.

During the first phase of the Open Landscape Platform (end of 2013 – August 2014) crow-mapping technology will be tested using the example of monitoring the status of various territories and protected natural areas based on satellite data provided to ScanEx RDC.

In the first phase ScanEx Research & Development will provide a “grant” in the form of satellite images acquired from WorldView- 2 satellite, covering an area of 2.25 million square kilometers. Space data will be provided under a license for non-commercial environmental applications. In accordance with the agreement between the DigitalGlobe and ScanEx RDC companies, experts of the Non-Profit Partnership “Transparent World” have already started working as per Open Landscape program and supporting the thematic geoportal of www.openlandscape.info.

At the first phase of the Open Landscape Platform its users will get free and password-protected web access to the available WorldView- 2 satellite imagery of the area of interest, online mapping tools and a dedicated space on the server. Participants will be able to use these tools to develop and keep up their own landscapes and “hot spots” crow-mapping projects. However, they must be prepared to carry out the work under the terms of reporting and provision of web maps based on their projects’ results to the project library. Further on these projects will be available to the public through an online forum for familiarization, analysis and discussion.

In April-June 2014 it is planned to organize an international tender of the projects submitted. It goal is to demonstrate and promote the most effective and potentially applicable solutions based on crow-mapping technology.

Organizers and ideologists of the Open Landscape Platform are: ScanEx Research and Development Center and NGO “Transparent World” in cooperation with the World Bank, the World Resources Institute and other members of the Global Forest Watch 2.0 and the Global Tiger Initiative. The platform is supported by DigitalGlobe, NASA and other satellite imagery providers.

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WILMINGTON, DE and LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM—(Marketwired – Oct 1, 2013) – NSR’s Global Satellite-Based Earth Observation (EO), 5th Edition report, released today, projects satellite-based EO revenues from Data, Processing and Information Products will reach $6 billion in the coming ten years, up from $2.2 billion in 2012.

Facing a difficult public sector budgetary climate, the EO industry is now shifting its roots from Government & Military customers to blooming Commercial verticals, with the latter representing more than 50% of the market in 2022. New Data products, new solutions, new business models and renewed pressures to lower shutter control regulations point towards strong creative innovation developing in the EO market.

ba. “The EO market is really at a turning-point, as several factors are now boosting demand from commercial end-users, while at the same time demand from traditional governmental end-users is seriously slowing down,” states NSR Senior Analyst and report author, Stéphane Gounari. “Beyond data sales, as commercial verticals are more open to externalization, the next decade should see the relative share of data decrease in favor of Information Products.”

“As shown by the new Cloud-based EO solutions recently released, certain satellite operators are positioning themselves to best take advantage of this shift,” stated Gounari. “Their solutions, best for the small commercial end-users, go far beyond on-line archived catalog and delivery services; they include or facilitate Processing and Information Products.”

The future of the EO market and the developments there in will be interesting to watch. While emerging economies are slowing down, which will eventually impact the market. Innovation and creative thinking and reassessment of regulations will give the EO market a slightly different view.

About the Report

NSR’s Global Satellite-Based Earth Observation (EO), 5th Edition provides a meticulous and thorough analysis of the trends affecting the satellite EO data industry and a new segmentation going beyond Data/VAS to Data, Processing and Information Products. The report includes a step-by-step analysis of the industry’s macro-environment, its competitive intensity, an assessment of each market (segmented by end-user verticals, regions and instrument-resolution), the major-players and their imaging capabilities currently in-orbit and planned, and a cartography of the value-chain. NSR comprehensively identifies Key Success Factors and forecasts the evolution of the Data, Processing and Information Products markets over the next 10 years, and presents them segmented by end-user vertical markets (6), regional markets (5) and instrument-resolution (6); the latter is also used to present data price forecasts, one additional innovation offered by NSR’s report.

About NSR

NSR is a leading international market research and consulting firm with a core focus on the satellite sector and related industries. Founded in 2000 and with an experienced group of analysts located in all regions, NSR specializes in analysis of growth opportunities across four core sectors: Satellite Communications, Broadcasting & Digital Media, Hybrid & Emerging Applications and Commercial Space.

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SpaceNews

(17 September 2013 by Matt Ball) While there has been much discussion about an explosion of earth observation satellites over the next few decades, much of that has centered around developing countries starting their own programs or existing countries adding to their capacity. New developments with smaller and cheaper satellites are now promising a surge of commercial space-based imagery platforms at a global scale.

A number of factors are at play with this rapid expansion, including: cheaper and more accessible satellite technology, more satellite launch choices thanks to the commercialization of space, a greater awareness of the insight these imaging platforms afford in a rapidly changing world, and better web-based visualization and mapping systems that are ready to ingest and analyze near real-time imagery.

This trend toward smaller satellites has been happening over time, with much of the innovation taking place in developing countries where affordability has been the key driver. However, there are now several venture-capital backed U.S.-based companies that are set to make inroads with recently announced plans for multi-satellite constellations with global coverage. These for-profit satellite constellations are fueled by the interest in more and more data for greater insight on global change, led by industries that are gaining market advantages through ongoing monitoring. The timing is ripe now as it matches the changes in computing capacity afforded by cloud computing, and new analytical tools that can make sense of these “Big Data” feeds.

Pioneering Low-cost Options

The trend toward smaller satellites has been led by the efforts of Surrey Satellite Technology. This 30-year-old company, has built a reputation of both small satellite construction and satellite constellation deployment, having success as the makers of the commercial RapidEye satellite imagery constellation, as well as their own spin-off company Disaster Monitoring Constellation International Imaging (DMCii). The company has now ramped up their presence in the United States, with the launch of SST-US.

“As we move forward, the role of the small spacecraft is becoming more important,” said Dr. John Paffett, CEO of SST-US. “That’s largely because every year the technology improves, with better computers and storage and payloads. The technological evolution improves, price points continue to come down, and now with a small 150 to 300 kg spacecraft for $10 to $20 million you can do what you were doing with a 1,000 kg spacecraft five to 10 years ago for $500 million.”

DMCii was developed by SST as a constellation of satellites that fill a unique niche with 32-meter resolution that is compatible with Landsat, and a three-band imager to assess vegetation health. The constellation’s advantage is that it has a very large swath width to capture an image tile that is 600 km by 600 km, and can capture the same image for the same part of the Earth every day.

The first-generation of four satellites were launched in 2002, another satellite was launched in 2005 with greater imaging capacity, and a sixth was launched in 2012. A second generation of satellites were launched in 2009 as NigeriaSat, with greater pixel density and 2.5 meter resolution panchromatic and 5 meter multispectral imagery. This imagery is owned by the Nigerian government and licensed to and sold by DMCii to enhance their offerings.

RapidEye offers five-meter imagery, with five spectral bands, from its constellation of five identical earth observation satellites that were launched in 2008. After issues with its financial backers related to the economic downturn, the Blackbridge Group, Canada, acquired the assets of RapidEye AG, and are marketing their solutions primarily toward natural resources, targeting agriculture, forestry, and the environment as well as energy, security and infrastructure.

more info at

  • About Matt Ball=
  • Matt has been promoting the application of sensors, systems, models and simulation for the better stewardship of our planet for the past fifteen years. The first ten years of that span were as editor of GeoWorld magazine and show manager of the GeoTec Event. The past five have been as a founder of Vector1 Media, with publications Sensors & Systems, Informed Infrastructure and Asia Surveying & Mapping. E-mail: mattball at vector1media.com
  • Source SensorsandSystems

(Sept 2013 – http://geospatialworld.net/) From determining land-use and crop patterns to optimising resources, automated farming to use of UAVs, technological advances could change the face of agriculture, which is under tremendous pressure given the growing population, urbanisation and climate change

A robotic device on the ground, UAVs in action, remotely controlled high-tech machines, and a room full of highly trained people to keep an eye on all the activities… It’s not a war-room scene or a post-disaster situation in any part of the world. This could very well be the future of agriculture. As the threats of climate change, erosion of land and water resources, and an emerging food crisis loom large, traditional practices of farming are fast changing as scientists are rigorously experimenting with new ideas to revolutionise mankind’s age-old vocation even in developing/underdeveloped nations in a view to feed the ever-increasing global population.

If the idea of experimentation with traditional farming methods strives to improve socio-economic condition, it is also needed to meet the demand of 70% more food by 2050 (a FAO projection in 2005-06). World population is expected to grow by over a third, or 2.3 billion, between 2005 and 2050. Moreover, a revised version of the FAO report in 2012 observed that the world has made significant progress in raising per capita food consumption, which increased from an average of 2,370 kcal per person per day to 2,770 kcal per person per day in the last three and a half decades. Simply put, this means more food intake per head. However, our already overburdened planet has apparently no more arable land or fresh water to spare. The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2013 warns that growth rate in agricultural production is likely to slow in the medium term with “limited slower area expansion and slower productivity growth”.

In such a situation, even as scientists look to experimenting with farming in the sub-zero environs of Antarctica or exploring the depths of the oceans, boosting crop yields on existing farmlands by embracing modern technologies like GIS, remote sensing and GNSS to meet the rising demands is but a natural and simpler solution. The reason is not difficult to guess. According to a report by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, modern technology enabled farmers in North America to get the highest outputs in the world. There, a farm worker produces about $90,000 of crops and livestock per year, compared to the global average of about $2,000. A recent survey of soybean growers conducted by US-based PrecisionAg Institute in cooperation with the American Soybean Association (ASA) reported an average savings of about 15% with precision farming on crop inputs such as seed, fertiliser and chemicals.

It is not without a reason that Raymond O’Connor, President, Topcon Positioning Systems, counts agriculture as the one of two largest manufacturing industries in the world, representing between $8 to 10 trillion a year, but as the least automated and having the biggest potential for embracing geospatial technologies. In 2000, the agriculture industry’s use of precision measurement equipment was probably less than $100 million; in 2012, it was more than $1 billion. Trimble, the no. 1 player in this area, has carved out a separate vertical for agriculture as its agri business crossed a hundred million dollars from less than $10-million in 1999. Realising the utility and potential of spatial information, John Deere, the US-based agriculture machinery giant, has set up a complete geospatial division as also an automated crop reporting service.

Driving factors of agriculture

The food crises of 2008, 2010, and 2012 as well as the continuous volatility in commodity prices underscore the vulnerability of the global food system. Now, more than ever, the world needs to increase investment in agriculture, which is two to four times more effective in raising incomes among the very poor compared to other sectors, according to the World Bank. The FAO estimates that private sector investment in agriculture alone must rise nearly 50% (from $142 billion a year to $209 billion a year) to meet the current requirements. Like in other businesses, population growth and urbanisation are the primary driving factors for agriculture too. Add climate change and degrading soil quality, and we have a lethal cocktail in hand.

Population growth: According to a FAO projection, feeding the global population of 9.1 billion in 2050 would require raising food production by around 70% between 2005-07 and 2050. Annual cereal production, for instance, would have to grow by almost 1 billion tonne while meat production has to rise by over 200 million tonne to a total of 470 million tonne in 2050. This leads to the need for improved resource management, which would increase crop yields, preventing land degradation and providing sustainable livelihoods for millions of rural poor.

Urbanisation: The world population is expected to be 69% urban by 2050, according to a UN estimate. Negative impacts of urbanisation on food and nutrition security without planning for both urban and rural food and agriculture systems include reduced land for agriculture, changing of food consumption habits with increased demand for processed foods, high literacy rate and subsequent lack of farm labour.

Urbanisation is also leading to problems of agricultural land management. In 1960, when the world population numbered only 3 billion, approximately 0.5 hectare of cropland was available per capita, the minimum area considered essential for the production of a diverse, healthy, nutritious diet of plant and animal products. With more than 7 billion population to feed, the per capita available cropland today has come down to 0.23 hectare.

Food losses: Roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year, or approximately 1.3 billion tonne, gets lost or wasted, amounting to roughly $680 billion in industrialised countries and $310 billion in developing nations, says a FAO report. In medium- and high-income countries, food is wasted and lost mainly at later stages in the supply chain, which is the result of lack of coordination between actors in the supply chain.

Climatic conditions: Agriculture and climate change are interrelated. Increases in temperature and CO2 can be beneficial for some crops in some places. To realise these benefits, nutrient levels, soil moisture, water availability, and other conditions must also be met. Changes in the frequency and severity of droughts and floods too pose great challenges.

Climate change: Optimisation of resources is essential to pursue sustainable production in agriculture and livestock to preserve the environment and, consequently, forests and biodiversity. “High-yield agriculture with optimisation processes will help slow the pace of global warming by cutting the amount of biomass burned when forests or grasslands are cleared for farming,” says Claudio Simão, President, Hexagon, South America & Asia Pacific.

Technological intervention in crop cycle: The Farmer’s Almanac has been replaced with geospatial analysis and predictive modelling and got a new name, Precision Agriculture. It is a farming concept that utilises the whole gamut of geospatial technologies and information to determine field variability for ensuring optimal use of inputs and maximising outputs from a farm. Modern technologies like UAVs (embedded with innovative sensors), GIS, GNSS, remote sensing and associated technologies enable farmers to visualise their land, crops and management practices in unprecedented ways while empowering community planners, economists and agronomists to research and devise practices towards sustainable food production. These tools are increasing productivity and return on investment and also driving the demand for tailored applications.

Farm site evaluation: To evaluate the farm in its whole, it is necessary to draw a map indicating the farm’s topography, boundaries as well as soil and water resources. Site evaluation is important to ensure minimum cost and correct drainage and for this agricultural bodies use soil and terrain data, climate data for the given land type and climate zone, land type inventory and description of soil, depth and the presence or absence of structures that effect the infiltration of water. A typical example here is the Web Soil Survey, launched by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in August 2005.

Laser levelling: The field is levelled with a certain degree of slope using a guided laser beam. Unevenness of the soil surface has a significant impact on the germination, stand and yield of crops. On laser-levelled land, farmers save up to 30% of water, reduce weed problems, improve uniformity of crop maturity, reduce the irrigation time and effort required to manage crop, improve crop establishment and improve yield. The laser levelling technology is promoted in developing regions through a number of ADB-funded projects. Although the adoption of such smart technologies is still in its infancy amongst small private farms in Asia, they have seen a great demand among the growing number of custom applicators and contractors that serve these small farms, with the result that these technologies are finding their way into some of the smallest farms in the world, says Martinez.

Precision seeding: It involves placing of the exact number of seeds at precise depth and spacing. Some of the advantages of precision seeding include reduced seed costs, greater crop uniformity leading to uniform and high-quality produce, fewer harvests, and 20-50% increased yield.

Crop monitoring: Geospatial technology facilitates realtime crop vegetation index monitoring via spectral analysis of high resolution satellite images for different fields and crops. The difference in vegetation index informs about single crop development disproportions that speak for the necessity of additional agriculture works on particular field zones. While satellite imagery has for years been used by various national governments for monitoring crops, the growing demand for such services has seen the proliferation of private service providers like Astrium-Geo, Cropio, eLeaf, GMV, Precision Agriculture, Skybox Imaging and Vega.

Precision harvesting: GNSS-based harvesting technology can be used on vehicle guidance, which is a hands-free device attached with grain carts, and supports the entire operational hours of harvesting. In integration with modern communication tools, GNSS enabled vehicle-to-vehicle information sharing of yield and moisture layers, wireless transfer of guidance lines and coverage maps between multiple, spotting vehicle locations throughout the field for efficient route management for harvesters and grain carts, and calculating how much field area has been harvested.

Precision weather forecasting: According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), weather-related incidents cause 90% of all crop losses. To deal with weather issues and get the best price from the market, weather-modelling services use Big Data analytics technology. For instance, IBM’s Deep Thunder gathers data from sensors placed throughout fields that measure temperature and moisture levels in soil and surrounding air. That information is combined with multispectral satellite or aerial images of fields. The system then combines the field data with a diversity of public data from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Geological Survey, and private data from companies like Earth Networks. A supercomputer processes the combined data and generates a 4D mathematical model. Deep Thunder can deliver hyperlocalised weather conditions up to three days in advance.

From applications as simple as improved water management through the use of laser technology for land levelling or GNSS-powered auto steering to improve productivity of the equipment or variable rate application of seeds or fertilisers to improve crop health and yield, precision agriculture is realising adoption across a wide range of farm sizes and economies of scale, observes Albert Zahalka, President, Topcon Precision Agriculture.

“Geospatial technology can provide up to 30% RoI, depending on seasons and solutions,” says Michael Martinez, Market Manager, Trimble Agriculture, as he points out Trimble’s GreenSeeker system enabled the University of Kentucky to calculate an RoI of $15 to $95 per acre on its plantation. Agrees Zahalka: “Today equipment efficiency drives significant adoption of technologies such as auto steering, Variable Rate Application and automatic on/off for sprayer or planters.” On the other hand, in developing countries like India, where farm sizes are typically small, precision agriculture is yet to take off since the machinery are not affordable. However, Michael Martinez, Market Manager, Trimble Agriculture, insists that it is a big misconception that precision farming cannot be used in small farms. “Precision farming is being used across many small Asian rice fields, including India, China, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Cambodia.”

G-powered initiatives in agriculture: Historically the application of geospatial information was reserved to concrete application areas, such as disaster reduction. Specialised agencies like FAO made use of geospatial information, particularly earth observation (EO), for general surveys. The global land cover and forest resources assessments are some examples. However, for most initiatives, the broader context of the integration of geoinformation used for and generated by the project was left to countries.

More recently, multilateral agencies have adopted a more strategic approach towards geoinformation for mapping of their own activities and advice to partner countries. The ‘mapping for results’ initiative of the World Bank and the United Nations Spatial Data Infrastructure initiative are examples. Geoinformation also plays a role in developing agriculture insurance schemes supported by multilateral agencies. This also applies to monitoring of food security. The UN Office for Drugs and Crime has made use of EO for a long time to detect coca and poppy plantations.

Although not technically a multilateral agency, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) has invested substantially in the GEONETCast programme, where free satellite imagery obtained through low-cost receiving stations is used for detection of agricultural pests, among others. It’s GEO Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEO GLAM) initiative, part of the G20 Action Plan on Food Price Volatility, uses EO satellite data and validates this using in situ measurements. The aim is to deliver reliable, accurate, timely and sustained crop monitoring information, and yield and weather forecasts.

World Bank: The Water Partnership Programme (WPP) of the World Bank in its planning document for the next few years has identified remote sensing as a technology to be explored further. The World Bank is also experimenting with community participatory mapping. As part of its new policy, Access to Information, and building on the success of the Open Data Initiative, the World Bank developed the interactive ‘Mapping for Results’ platform in October 2010 to visualise the locations of Bank-financed projects and international aid programmes (including food security and hunger eradication) at the sub-national level. In addition, with the entire Bank portfolio now geo-coded, the World Bank and other donors established an Open Aid Partnership to improve coordination and effectiveness of aid worldwide.

FAO: FAO, of course, embraced e-agriculture long ago to ‘bridge the rural digital divide’. It has a successful programme on early detection and eradication of locust plagues that can devastate crops, based on low-cost satellite imagery. FAO has collaborated with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and SAGE to form a consortium called Agri-MAPS, which aims to provide a global spatial database based-on selected subnational agricultural statistics.

FAO is establishing GIS guidelines and spatial standards and norms for internal use in order to rationalise, harmonise and advance its GIS and cartographic activities and to support GeoNetwork, which has interactive maps, satellite imagery and related spatial databases to provide a GIS gateway to farmers.

Established in the wake of the world food crisis of the early 1970s, FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) remains the leading source of information on food production and food security for every country in the world. In the past 25 years, the system has become a worldwide network which includes 115 governments, 61 NGOs and numerous trade, research and media organisations.

WFP: The World Food Programme (WFP) uses geoinformation for vulnerability assessments, making use of local expertise and relatively lowcost handheld GPS-devices. Similarly, geoinformation plays a key role in the national comprehensive food security vulnerability assessments that WFP carries out regularly.

Asian Development Bank: ADB prominently uses geospatial technology for collecting food security information. Food security information includes estimating cultivated area, crop production of paddy, precipitation data, soil moisture, drought index, vegetation index and land cover/land use map. ADB sees remote sensing technology as a cost-effective and efficient tool as it enables periodic observation of a wide area with the ease of integration with maps, says Yusuke Muraki, Space Technology Specialist with the organisation. “In many countries, latest and reliable information about crop growth and agricultural weather conditions are insufficient, or impossible to obtain. Satellite data is often the only available data for such regions,” he adds. ADB’s Global Precipitation Map (GsMAP) offers ‘free’ hourly global rainfall map from various satellite data.

European Commission: The MARS Unit Mission of the European Commission has been conducting several agriculture-based activities with satellite data. Some of its initiatives include AGRI4CAST, GeoCAP and FOODSEC. The AGRI4CAST system, also known as the MARS Crop Yield Forecasting System, is made by remote sensing and meteorological observations, agro-meteorological modelling (Crop Growth Monitoring System) and statistical analysis tools. The GeoCAP Action addresses the new information needs for policies related to agriculture and regional development, such as cross compliance, farm advisory system, food quality and product origin traceability in Europe. The FOODSEC action was developed in 2001, in cooperation with the MARS STAT action and in the framework of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security initiative, a system for regional monitoring and forecasting in various parts of the world.

A two-speed world

Typically, most national and agricultural policies were formulated way before the geospatial revolution took off. Interestingly, one of the first concrete applications of EO is related to agriculture. In the early ’70s NASA officials realised that with satellite images they could predict a bad grain harvest in what was then the Soviet Union, and that the US could have obtained a higher price for the annual grain sales to the USSR. Geospatial information was used to support agricultural policy and only later it was realised that this enabled new and innovative ways towards a more holistic agricultural policy.’

Realising the urgency and profitability, both developed and developing nations have started using geoinformation and advanced technologies like automation and precision farming to improve yields and reduce costs. “There are many factors that influence technology acceptance, from its awareness, reliance, infrastructure availability or even application fit. This clearly varies from region to region, as well as application,” says Simão. He adds that it will be a good idea to identify high-yield farming in emerging and mature markets and then justify more complex solutions.

However, till then the state of agriculture practices is clearly moving at two speeds in the two markets, a fact necessitated by local compulsions and requirements.

Developed regions: Developed countries such as Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand and those in Europe have been the early adopters of new technologies. While the governments here woke up to evolving technologies and the need for clearcut policies for an agri revolution, large farm sizes and scarcity of labours compelled local farmers to the use of remotely controlled high-tech machines, sensors and EO satellite data.

A very clear example is the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), supported by the European Commission’s Geo- CAP Action, renamed as of January 2008 from the previous ‘MARS PAC’ action, which also indirectly provides assistance to policies linked to it such as the implementation of the Water Framework Directive and the Herbicide & Herbicide Directive. “Among the main examples, one can cite the ‘Control with Remote Sensing’ [which is now legally accepted as an on-the-spot check method] and the development of digital Land Parcel Identification Systems based on ortho imagery,” says Loudjani. GeoCAP also provides recommendation on how to validate and use GNSS devices in the frame of parcel area measurements for the CAP.

GeoCAP also addresses new information needs for policies related to agriculture and regional development, such as cross compliance, farm advisory system, food quality and product origin traceability in the continent. Further, it has a number of ongoing activities (low carbon farming practices, soil carbon preservation and sequestration etc.) to analyse how change in agriculture practices or land protection could help mitigate the impacts of climate change. “Once we reach specific recommendations to mitigate effects, geospatial technologies can be of great importance to implement some of them such as precision farming,” says Philippe Loudjani, Head, GeoCAP, MARS unit, Institute of Environment and Sustainability.

Europe is also developing precision agriculture databases and standardising data exchange (AgroXML). ISO Bus implementation (and further development) is also in process to overcome compatibility problems.

Land use monitoring has long been one of the main geospatial activities for agricultural policy monitoring and impact measurement. The US Department of Agriculture uses geoinformation to support the national policy on commodities, conservation, agricultural trade, nutrition programmes, rural development, agricultural research, education and extension, forestry, biofuels, sustainable agriculture etc. More specifically, the National Integrated Drought Information System provides forecasts and other information to farmers on droughts, such as the ones that hampered agricultural production in the Western and SouthWestern US in the last few years.

In most of the developed countries, crop canopy sensors are being used to detect light reflectance or laser induced chlorophyll fluorescence. They use sensors as electronic noses, measuring volatile organic compounds produced by fungi, for early and species-specific pest detection. Unmanned ground vehicles and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are increasingly carrying sensors for field monitoring. In addition, these countries are using autonomous field robots for crop monitoring and crop treatment. For instance, researchers at the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies, University of Sydney, developed robotic systems, sensors and intelligent devices for automated agriculture. The robots can move through an orchard gathering data and develop comprehensive in-ground and out-of-ground model. They will be also equipped to perform many agricultural operations such as fertilising, watering, sweeping and mowing.

The commercial agriculture market has been identified as the largest segment for potential use of UAS by the American Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), which is upbeat about its use for precision application of crop protection agents or nutrients. However, though the use of UAS is subject to country-specific legislations and the US has banned use of commercial UAS flights till 2015, Tamme Van Der Wal, Geomatics Expert at Aerovision, says a number of countries such as Japan are opening up to this new technology. AUVSI also expects a favourable decision from the US government.

Developing regions: Developing and poorer countries host a majority of the world’s 815 million chronically food-insecure people, according to FAO. Agriculture remains the largest employment sector in these countries, which typically have small farm holdings and lack technological knowhow and funds for modern agriculture. However, the use of satellite data for weather and crop forecast, monitoring soil quality, irrigation sources etc have taken off well even in these countries.

In Asia, using geospatial information for predicting monsoons and extreme events has become a part of the agricultural policies. In Africa, the MESA programme, a cooperation between the African Union and the EU, has a similar aim.

In Brazil, the Canasat project, for establishing and monitoring areas under sugarcane cultivation, is an example of a geo-application supporting national agricultural policy. In fact, Brazil is an exception among the developing countries. The Brazilian Agriculture Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) has made the country a pioneer in precision farming. EMBRAPA has also developed ‘Observation and Monitoring System for Agriculture’ (SOMABRASIL). “The project organises, integrates and makes geospatial databases available on the Web, thus contributing to the understanding of land use and land cover changes.” points out Mateus Batistella, Director, EMBRAPA Satellite Monitoring.

Agriculture has been the thrust area in the remote sensing application programme in India and crop forecasting using remote sensing data by the Indian Space Research Organisation started in the late ’80s, says Dr Shibendu Shankar Ray, Director, Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre. He adds that satellite-based remote sensing data is being used for a manifold applications in agriculture, including crop production forecasting, sustainable agricultural development, irrigation management, site suitability for infrastructure development, watershed development, drought assessment, soil resources mapping and so on. Satellite data also has a great role in many allied fields of agriculture, including potential fishing zone forecast.

Geospatial tools and techniques were used under the National Initiative for Climate Resilient Agriculture programme that was launched in February 2011 for identifying agriculturally vulnerable regions in the country, points out Dr Kaushalya Ramachandran, Principal Scientist, CRIDA.

Recently, the Indian government recommended remote sensing and GPS-based support system for land rejuvenation, while pilot studies are being planned to perfect such techniques for land-use planning and precision farming. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research has launched a $250-million World Bank-funded initiative called the National Agricultural Innovation Project which extensively uses geospatial data for innovative ways of farming.

In Malaysia, the Planning, Information Technology and Communications Division of the Department of Agriculture developed and maintains the GIS base Agriculture Information Portal System (AgrIS GeoPortal). In addition, the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) is pushing precision technology in rice farming.

Vietnam has used geospatial data and technologies for land evaluation on national, regional, provincial and district scales for suitable land-use planning/agricultural development. It has developed applications for explicit assessment of nutrient demands for promoting efficient regional fertiliseruse management; using Webmap for transferring fertiliser recommendation to farmers, traders, fertiliser producers and administrators. It is also using remote sensing and geostatistics for identifying geographic hotspots of humaninduced land degradation and their social-ecological types. “There have been a number of policies to mandate the use of geospatial technology in agriculture for transfer of spatial information in a faster and productive way,” says Nguyen Van Bo, President, Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Geospatial technology is used in a big way in rice production, leading to an increase in production by 1 million tonne a year.

Chile has been using remote sensing data for various uses in agriculture for many years now. The National Resources Information Centre (CIREN) has convinced the Ministry of Agriculture to set up a spatial data infrastructure, IDE-Miniagri, discloses Dr Eugenio Gonzalvez Aquilo, Executive Director, CIREN. The Foundation for Agricultural Innovation, a public agency to promote and financially support agricultural research, development and innovation, collaborated with the World Bank in 2009 to prepare a vision document for agriculture in Chile for 2030 which has proposed an extensive usage of modern technology for natural resource and farm management.

Since land is the mainstay of agriculture, more often than not policies in this sector are often aligned to land management issues. For instance, geospatial technology helped in land elevation study and agricultural infrastructure development in Philippines. “The true value of this technology was realised during the World Bank-supported geo-tagging project which helped validate and monitor the area under agriculture,” says Arnel de Mesa, Deputy Programme Director, Mindanao Rural Development Programme, Department of Agriculture. “It helped in eradication of corruption, especially in agricultural tendering process,” he says. The department is now looking at the use of UAVs for airborne monitoring and survey of farms.

Russia’s System of State Land Monitoring is another good example. It comprises two subsystems. “The Federal Geographic Information System Agricultural Lands Atlas was created to provide up-to-date information about agricultural lands to government bodies and local authorities, legal entities and individuals. The Remote Sensing Monitoring System uses RS data for information related to planning, control and management of agricultural lands,” explains Michael Bolsunovsky, First Deputy Director General, Sovzond, which collaborated with the Russian Ministry of Agriculture on the project. Further, for optimum utilisation of available land, several countries like China and Vietnam are converting all small farms into big farms.

The future

The increased attention agriculture is getting from international policy makers — as shown by the decision at the G8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy to mobilise $20 billion into the sector over the next three years — is timely. Most importantly, access to land and finance is a big challenge for many, which is essential for farming and agricultural entrepreneurship. The world’s 1 billion-plus farmers should be at the centre of new investment strategies, because they are, by far, the largest investors in agriculture, after public and private players. Farmers in 76 low- and middle-income countries invest almost $170 billion a year in their farms — about $150 per farmer, according to FAO estimates. This is a big source that needs to be tapped, but will not be easy given the economics involved.

“We [the developing world] need modern technologies, both software and hardware, and satellite data for bringing innovation in agricultural practices. Cost of technologies is high, especially the cost of remote sensing satellite data,” underlines Nguyen Van Bo of Vietnam.

Hexagon’s Simão thinks aligning the products and applications portfolio to the specific requirements of the emerging markets is the way to address the needs. “This also will enable us to help farmers adopt solutions that can improve their performance in their environment and, consequently, expedite the stages of utilisation of the precision farming technologies in these particular markets,” he points out.

The new buzzword in agriculture is real-time information, but that remains a challenge for farmers in both developed and developing regions, even though the industry is bullish about big business prospect in this new application area. “The agriculture industry is beginning to shift from equipment efficiency to valuing the data, more importantly the information that can be obtained during the operational processes of planting and growing the crop,” says Topcon’s Zahalka.

Bolsunovsky sees Web-based services by subscription and mobile applications as the best solutions for small agricultural producers who can’t pay significant money for ready-to-use multifunctional soft/hardware solutions. Agrees Dr. Bernhard Schmitz, Commercial Manager, ATS Products EAME, AGCO International GmbH: “Mobile and real-time information is definitely an important element of what farmers are looking for.” Dr Roy thinks involving the end-users in GIS application processes, capacity building, developing simpler GIS tools for better use of geospatial technology is required. “We also need to generate outputs in real-time. And for that, we need tools and technologies which are more user-oriented,” he adds.

Whatever the new development, two significant challenges with respect to agricultural policy and geospatial information will have to be addressed. The first is delivery of the information to the target group, be it the policymaker or the farmer, at the right time and in the right format. Usually, the technical aspects of systems are well developed and the knowledge is available to the experts concerned, but communication with officials who have to act on the information and with other target groups presents problems in terms of timing and the way messages are formulated. The second challenge concerns the gap that exists between the local and national/international levels. Usually information is provided separately to these levels, complying with the different requirements, but information at the in-between level that is so important for district or provincial policy making and/or implementation, is lacking. Integration of different levels of information is of key importance to improve strategic decision-making in agricultural policy.

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Copyright 2013 PR Newswire. All Rights Reserved
2013-10-07


NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue: Remote Sensing Technologies and Global Markets

INTRODUCTION

Remote Sensing Technologies and Global Markets expands on BCC Research’s three previous studies of the $12.1 billion market for products created from data acquired by remote sensing instrumentation. In this edition, regional forecasts that appeared in previous studies have been replaced with nation-level forecasts for the 39 countries in which 2019 product demand is expected to surpass $40 million. Forecasts are presented as a series of 100 tables, organized by country and 20 end-user markets.

The remote sensing end-user markets forecast in this study are:
• Agriculture.
• Archeological and cultural site protection.
• Atmospheric research.
• Border protection.
• Cartography.
• Climate change studies.
• Disaster management.
• Forestry.
• Hydrology and freshwater resources.
• Intelligence gathering.
• Land mine detection.
• Land planning.
• Law enforcement.
• Natural hazard monitoring.
• Oceanography.
• Oil, gas and mineral exploration.
• Public health.
• Right-of-way management.
• Urban and suburban planning.
• Weather forecasting.

Remote sensing instruments addressed in this study are:
• Acoustic/Sonar.
• Camera (digital imager).
• Camera (film).
• Gravity.
• Hyperspectral.
• Laser.
• Lidar.
• Multispectral.
• Radar.
• Seismic.

Countries forecasted are:
• Argentina.
• Australia.
• Austria.
• Belgium.
• Brazil.
• Canada.
• China – Mainland.
• China – Taiwan.
• China-Hong Kong.
• Colombia.
• Czech Republic.
• Denmark.
• Finland.
• France.
• Germany.
• Greece.
• India.
• Indonesia.
• Israel.
• Italy.
• Japan.
• Korea-South.
• Mexico.
• Netherlands.
• Norway.
• Pakistan.
• Poland.
• Portugal.
• Russia.
• Saudi Arabia.
• Singapore.
• South Africa.
• Spain.
• Sweden.
• Switzerland.
• Thailand.
• Turkey.
• U.K.
• U.S.
• Rest of the World.

STUDY GOAL AND OBJECTIVES

The goal of this study was to expand on the analyst’s three previous examinations of the remote sensing industry, the most recent of which was published in 2011. In this current study, the most recent available data was used to forecast 20 end-user markets in the 39 countries that account for approximately $11 billion of the $12.1 billion global market for remote sensing products.

REASONS FOR DOING THE STUDY

Since BCC Research last visited the topic in 2011, several significant events have influenced the demand for information products created from remote sensed data.
• Many of the key satellite platforms used to acquire critical remote sensing data have been retired; some, but not all, have been replaced with obvious implications for the availability for current data.
• A considerable body of new public data describing national infrastructures, environmental resources and other leading indicators of demand for remote sensing products has become available, making it possible to refine forecasts from the regional to country level for markets greater than $40 million.
• Federal programs that support the collection of remote sensing—the supply side of the industry in the U.S. and European Union—have been subject to budget cutbacks, negatively impacting new data acquisition.
• State- and community-level data users—the demand side of the industry—have had funding reduced as a result of the trickle-down of austere federal budgets.
• In the U.S., Congress mandated the opening of the skies to pilotless “drone” aircraft, which is anticipated to radically change the economics for creating remote sensing products from instrumentation operating from airborne platforms. The ability to acquire a complete unmanned aerial system (UAS) for what is presently the cost of conducting one mission with a manned aircraft will reduce the cost of data acquisition, but also the overall value of the market.
• The opening of the skies to UAS remote sensing removes the need for unique Certificate of Authorizations, which law enforcement agencies must now acquire from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), spawning a contentious national debate on privacy rights issues.
• Increased capability of geographic information systems (GIS) has blurred previous qualitative distinction between very expensive space-based platforms, moderately expensive airborne platforms and low-cost UAS platforms.
GIS software has sped the integration of low-cost and free historic datasets. The resulting homogenization of historic, recent and real-time data access has reduced the costs of producing remote products. For example, first- generation black and white TV images of U.S. cloud cover from 1970s era weather satellites have proved unexpectedly useful in climate change studies.

INTENDED AUDIENCE

This study will be of interest to executives and investors in industries serving the 20 end-user application areas that define the remote sensing market, and manufacturers and marketers of remote sensing instrument and platforms. It will be equally useful for decision makers for national and state governments, multinational organizations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

SCOPE OF REPORT

This report focuses exclusively on products created from platform-mounted remote sensors. Instruments excluded from this study are:
• Instruments that require physical contact with a substance, such as flow gauges in stream monitoring and chromatographs and kindred laboratory instruments in air-quality investigations.
• Airport screening systems.
• Products created from instruments aboard platforms owned by the U.S. defense and intelligence communities and their foreign counterparts.

METHODOLOGY

Study METHODOLOGY: Both primary and secondary research methodologies were used in preparing this study. To undertake this forecast, we analyzed remote sensing products currently on the market, announced products, interviews with industry leaders, U.S. patents and products referenced in forward-looking financial statements filed with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). The value of imagery has been calculated on the basis of published prices, and in the case of government agencies, by extrapolating from published program budgets. Demand within each end-user market was predicated upon the use of industry best practices.
Forecasting METHODOLOGY: The forecasting model used in this study sees the national demand for remote sensing products as responding to three factors.
• Sufficient telecommunications and information technology (IT) infrastructure.
• Mechanisms for training workers to use remote sensing products.
• The ability to pay for the requisite IT infrastructure, training and data.

Comparative differences among countries regarding those three factors can be ascertained from a nation’s GDP, the use of telecommunications services such as company websites and email by businesses, and its willingness to train its workforce. End-use demand at the national level can be further clarified by adjusting for application-specific indicators. For example, the number of acres of arable land directly correlates with the demand for remote sensing by agricultural end users. Similarly, the length of a nation’s border serves as a leading indicator for border protection products. Factors influencing forecasts are described throughout this study.

INFORMATION SOURCES

BCC reviewed more than 700 companies to obtain data for this study. We also reviewed reports and studies prepared for peer-reviewed professional literature, and reports by the technical staffs of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Geologic Survey (USGS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as their foreign counterparts. We also reviewed relevant Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congressional Research Service (CRS) and Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents and filings, as well as presidential directives, executive orders and policy statements. We also examined the technical specifications for 277 presently operating earth observation, navigation/GPS and remote sensing satellites compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists. In addition, we also reviewed data from scientific and technical conferences, presentations prepared for financial analysts, the United Nations (UN), European Union (EU), European Commission (EC), European Space Agency (ESA) and the World Bank (WB). All information contained in this study was acquired exclusively from open sources.

ANALYST’S CREDENTIALS

Technology analyst, James Wilson, studies the commercial aspects of science and technology. Formerly the editor of the Princeton Business Journal and a senior science and technology editor for Hearst Magazines, he is a past member of the National Association of Science Writers. Wilson has served on the adjunct faculty of Temple University and on the staffs of Drexel University and the Academy of Natural Sciences. In addition to being the project analyst for earlier BCC Research studies of remote sensing, he was also the analyst for BCC studies of the global markets for portable analysis instrumentation, robots, intelligent wireless microsystems and mobile telematics systems. Titles of his studies are followed by asterisks in the listing below. In connection with his study of remote sensing, Wilson has visited corporate and military satellite remote sensing and UAV research and operation centers in the U.S. and Europe.

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS

This report provides:
• An overview of the global market for remote sensing technologies, including four major remote sensing platforms, 10 key remote sensing instruments, and 20 applications that account for the bulk of the industry
• Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2012, estimates for 2013 and 2014, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2019
• Estimates of demand for remote sensing products by region, instrument by application, and platform by application
• An explanation of remote sensing image analysis techniques
• Reviews of remote sensing patents, including patent abstracts and the names of the inventors and original patent assignees
• Identification of the major organizations that form and support the global remote sensing community
• Comprehensive company profiles of major players.

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