ESA title

Category: Philab

ESA Member States boost EO Commercialisation at Ministerial Council

Posted on by nchimonides

At the recent 2022 ESA Council at Ministerial Level, Member States affirmed the success of InCubed by renewing the programme with a 65% budget boost. InCubed’s new, wider remit encompasses a host of actions designed to further stimulate and accelerate European innovation and competitiveness in commercial Earth observation.

The ESA Council is the governing body that provides the policy guidelines within which the Agency develops the European space programme. The Council meets periodically at ministerial level, and at the last meeting, the 2022 ESA Council at Ministerial Level (CM22), Member States gave a ringing endorsement of ESA’s work, with an exceptional 17% subscription increase compared with CM19. This equates to a total of €17 billion, of which 16% is destined for the Earth Observation Programme (EOP) for continuing and developing its efforts in facing the global challenges of 2023 to 2026 and beyond and ensuring European strategic autonomy.

As an ESA Earth observation commercialisation initiative, InCubed is an optional programme for Member States and so is heavily dependent on the outcome of Ministerial Council meetings. For CM22, the Φ-lab Invest office submitted proposals for expanding the scope and reach of InCubed, leading to the successful allocation of additional funds amounting to €176 million overall programme size. Two new countries, Slovenia and Hungary, also joined, bringing the InCubed family to a total of 21 participating states.

Dubbed InCubed-2, the latest incarnation of the programme comprises a suite of enhancements termed ‘Invest Actions’. These have been added as a result of lessons learnt during previous InCubed phases and are intended to create a framework of partnerships and collaborations that will strengthen the InCubed offer and further support the evolution of the commercial Earth observation (EO) sector. Examples of planned activities include research on promising EO markets, awareness campaigns, creating InCubed ambassadors, start-up coaching, InCubed Business Innovation Factories, and a new, faster route for rapidly delivering proofs of concept using emerging technologies.

“The funds granted at CM22 will further empower us in our quest to advance European commercial EO,” comments InCubed Programme Manager Michele Castorina. “InCubed strives to bring together technical capabilities and investment to enable European entrepreneurs to operate in the global EO domain, and the Invest Actions will help underpin this vision by reinforcing relationships with private investors, venture builders and other key stakeholders.”

One Invest Action that is already underway is thematic calls. Conceived as competitive initiatives aimed at selecting and coaching promising companies, thematic calls are based on current societal issues that may benefit from EO technologies and data. The first call, covering the topic of Cultural and Natural Heritage, was launched recently and will be followed by further such competitions in the future.

Other InCubed events and campaigns are also on the way this year, including EO Commercialisation Days in May. This forum for entrepreneurs, investors, institutions and established companies will provide an ideal platform for commercial collaboration. Details of the event will be published shortly.

To know more: CM22, InCubed, Cultural and Natural Heritage Thematic Call

Image courtesy of ESA – S. Corvaja

ESA and Sinergise to collaborate on promotion of EO space entrepreneurship

Posted on by nchimonides

ESA has signed a letter of intent with Slovenian company Sinergise Ltd to foster Earth observation (EO) entrepreneurship and encourage the development of EO commercial solutions. The collaboration will target companies supported by ESA Φ-lab, the InCubed EO commercialisation programme, ESA’s Business Incubation Centres (ESA BICs) and ESA Technology Brokers.

Sinergise Ltd has extensive expertise in developing advanced geospatial information systems (GISs) based on cloud and web technologies. Established in 2008, the company focuses on high-impact fields such as Earth observation, making it easy for individuals, institutions and companies to retrieve actionable insights.

The intended partnership on Earth observation commercialisation with ESA is aimed at joint efforts between the two entities for bolstering the development of an active and vibrant EO commercial ecosystem, strengthening the usage of innovative technologies and raising awareness of EO-based services. The collaboration is particularly focused on enhancing the business cases of companies that are or have been supported through Φ-lab or the InCubed EO commercialisation programme, ESA BIC or ESA Technology Broker activities.

One of the key actions for accelerating entrepreneurship will be a free one-year enterprise-level subscription for Sinergise’s Sentinel Hub, an award-winning satellite imagery archiving, processing and distribution service. Located either in a cloud-based GIS or within the client environment, Sentinel Hub provides easy access to satellite data from missions such as Sentinel, Landsat, Planet, Pleiades and WorldView, and can help both space and non-space players leverage a wealth of EO-powered information.

Further details on the collaboration and how to take advantage of the Sentinel Hub offer will be communicated to InCubed and other ESA Φ-lab-supported companies in the coming months, and will also be distributed via the ESA BIC and ESA Technology Broker Network.

To know more: Φ-lab, InCubed, ESA BIC, ESA Technology Broker

Copernicus Sentinel-2 image courtesy of ESA

ESA continues to explore the value of AI in space in partnership with Thales Alenia Space and Microsoft

Posted on by nchimonides

ESA is fostering the advent of Cognitive Cloud Computing in Space (3CS) by capitalising on high-performance Artificial Intelligence (AI) accelerator chips directly onboard satellites. In a recently agreed initiative, ESA Φ-lab will launch a challenge with Microsoft and Thales Alenia Space to develop new Machine Learning (ML) models for a hyperspectral optical sensor aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

ESA’s vision for edge computing in space is to facilitate the development of an ecosystem of in-orbit information processing, and early work done by the Agency with its partners has proved the feasibility of such an idea. In particular, the Φ-sat-1 mission experiment used a powerful onboard AI processor to successfully filter out clouds from hyperspectral optical sensor Earth observation (EO) data.

The next step was to explore the possibility of classifying additional imagery features onboard and reprogramming the chip, a breakthrough achieved on the subsequent FDL, Unibap and D-Orbit Wild Ride mission. With AI software developed by FDL, Wild Ride enabled rapid segmentation of EO data for flood identification to take place on the satellite, and the software was also shown to be reprogrammable from the ground. This year, ESA’s next-generation Φ-sat-2 satellite will deliver a platform for the in-flight uploading, deployment and updating of third-party ML models.

As part of its remit to nurture innovation in AI4EO, ESA Φ-lab has actively participated in the development of these missions and continues to provide the means for advances in in-orbit data processing. A new agreement with Thales Alenia Space and Microsoft aims to launch an open challenge for ML applications to be deployed aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Stéphane Terranova, CEO at Thales Alenia Space in Spain, explains his company’s role: “As part of our space edge computing development, we will be launching a high-performance computer, in-orbit application framework and state-of-the-art sensor on the ISS. The package will provide a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate and validate the potential of 3CS. Furthermore, partnering with Microsoft and ESA Φ-lab enables us to leverage their software and EO-data expertise. The mission will unlock new in-orbit climate data processing applications for the benefit of our planet’s sustainability through Earth observation.”

“Broadening access to onboard processing in space will lead to an increase in public participation and discovery of new use cases for Earth observation,” adds Stephen Kitay, Senior Director Azure Space at Microsoft. “By bringing Azure Orbital Space SDK [Software Development Kit] to the ISS installation, we can bring the best of Microsoft developer technology and capabilities to the space industry and this competition.”

The ESA Φ-lab team will create a toolkit for the challenge, giving participants simulated data from the ISS optical payload as the input to their applications. In parallel, the team will be running a similar but separate contest, with entrants submitting applications for Φ-sat-2.

Head of Φ-lab Giuseppe Borghi sums up the significance of the agreement and the challenges: “We’re thrilled to work with these two best-in-class partners in what will be Φ-lab’s first project involving the International Space Station. Our overall objective with both the ISS and Φ-sat-2 in-orbit demonstrations is to lower the space-sector barrier to entry for AI practitioners and in so doing encourage them to develop new models that will further revolutionise EO through 3CS.”

Details of the ISS and Φ-sat-2 calls will be published shortly, and updates can be found on the ai4eo.eu portal.

To know more: Φ-sat-1, Microsoft, Thales Alenia Space, Microsoft Azure Orbital Space

Main image courtesy of NASA/ESA–T. Pesquet

Research fellow call: AI and EO for Climate

Posted on by nchimonides

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the power to accelerate the global response to climate change and is the focus of a new research fellowship position call with the European Space Agency.

AI algorithms can systematically organise petabytes of data, uncover new insights and train models that predict change. This makes their application across the fields of Earth observation and climate research increasingly attractive, especially when the need to slow and adapt to negative future consequences is becoming ever more urgent.

The new two-year fellowship is a joint collaboration between two parts of ESA’s Directorate of Earth Observation Programme – the Climate Office, which oversees the development of key global climate satellite datasets (part of its Climate Change Initiative) and informs both the UNFCCC and the wider science community and the innovation-focussed Φ-lab, which connects partners from industry, national and international organisations and the third sector through its AI4EO initiative.

Read the full article on climate.esa.int.

ESA Φ-lab at ESRIN and Thales Alenia Space to work jointly on Earth observation innovation

Posted on by nchimonides

The ESA Director of Earth Observation has signed a letter of intent with Thales Alenia Space Italy, with the aim of collaborating on disruptive solutions for Earth observation (EO). Cognitive SAR, federated learning, hybrid computing for Artificial Intelligence (AI) at scale and the use of AI and EO in immersive reality are the core elements of the collaboration.

With its mission to accelerate the future of Earth observation through transformational innovation, Φ-lab continues to reinforce Europe’s global lead in the space science and commercial sectors. Partnerships are a key element of innovation, and Φ-lab has a strong track record of collaboration with a broad range of organisations.

Artificial Intelligence and new computing paradigms like neuromorphic, quantum, and edge computing, applied to both optical and radar EO data, are a strategic area of interest for both Φ-lab and Thales Alenia Space in Italy. Specific topics include end-to-end learning for SAR data, physically-based AI for extracting information from SAR data and enabling object detection, recognition and classification, collective intelligence and federated learning at the edge, and the use of AI and EO in immersive-reality scenarios such as AR/VR for satellite data and management.

The aim of the cooperation between Φ-lab and Thales Alenia Space Italy is to jointly explore such innovative technologies and their application to uses cases of significant interest to both entities. The expectation is that this will help ESA Φ-lab to focus on research that seeks to boost the innovation capabilities of the European EO industry, enabling the sector to gain an unrivalled competitive advantage in the face of fierce worldwide competition.

Massimo Comparini is SEVP of Observation, Exploration and Navigation at Thales Alenia Space: “There are both significant opportunities and sizeable challenges in harnessing the power of cutting-edge AI paradigms for Earth observation. We believe that Thales Alenia Space’s extensive industry experience, in combination with ESA Φ-lab’s unparalleled reputation for research, will create a platform for developing practical solutions to real-world problems in EO data handling.”

“With this agreement, ESA Φ-lab is creating another strategic partnership that will push the boundaries of Earth observation innovation, strengthening Europe’s unique competitive advantage through ground-breaking innovation,” added Giuseppe Borghi, the Head of Φ-lab and the main ESA contact for the collaboration. “We are extremely happy that an EO world leader like Thales Alenia Space has proactively identified synergies with ESA that will drive the success of this mutually beneficial initiative on transformative technologies.”

In commenting on the signing of the letter of intent, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes Simonetta Cheli emphasised the symbiotic nature of the undertaking: “Partnering with Thales Alenia Space in game-changing Earth observation research is yet another example of ESA advancing the European space sector through collaborative innovation. Our joint efforts will pool the know-how of both parties to yield what I’m certain will be remarkable breakthroughs in AI-driven information processing.”

To know more: ESA Φ-lab, Thales Alenia Space Italy

HiVE microsatellite constellation to provide early crop-health monitoring

Posted on by nchimonides

At a ceremony today at ESA’s ESRIN establishment, German company constellr signed a contract extension to design, develop and customer-validate its HiVE solution with ESA InCubed technical and financial support. Through the development of a microsatellite with an innovative Thermal Infrared (TIR) payload, HiVE will place advanced-warning data on crop stress at the fingertips of agribusiness companies, smart-farm operators and government policy makers.

Traditional approaches to measuring crop water-stress conditions include monitoring irrigation systems, indirect measurement of field temperatures, or aerial remote sensing of temperature via drones, all of which have drawbacks. Satellite remote sensing is available, but generally relies on optical imaging of leaf colour changes, meaning that at the time of detection irreversible crop damage has probably already occurred. Thermal infrared satellite measurements, which eliminate these drawbacks, are however becoming increasingly available.

constellr GmbH, a New Space start-up with offices in Freiburg and Brussels, saw an opportunity to provide immediate monitoring of crop health through specifically created TIR Earth observation satellites. By directly measuring leaf temperature from space, changes in plant transpiration can be spotted so that farmers can take remedial action days or weeks before critical crop deterioration ensues. constellr’s HiVE (High-resolution VEgetation monitoring) system will encompass a constellation of microsatellites with miniaturised TIR sensors in combination with a global ground-station-as-a-service infrastructure and cloud-based data platform. HiVE’s toolset will give both commercial and institutional customers actionable insights on crop conditions, helping to reduce the risk of crop loss and improve yield predictions.

The HiVE development is technically supported and partially funded by the ESA InCubed programme. At the contract extension signing today, constellr CTO Marius Bierdel commented on the significance of the investment: “Supported by the technical expertise and funding of InCubed, constellr is able to expedite the development of its first commercially operational satellite. This is a critical early part of our rapid infrastructure development cycle – a major driver for our competitiveness in the market and the key to bringing us a step closer to being a successful player in the space ecosystem.”

The German National Delegation to ESA was also represented at the meeting. “HiVE is the largest investment that we have made so far within InCubed,” explained Michael Nyenhuis, InCubed Programme Coordinator at the German Space Agency at DLR. “Given the current global issues of drought and food shortages, today’s launch of this development initiative is particularly timely, and we are sure that the final product will have a decisive role in optimising future irrigation management and biomass output.”

“This is a great example of how ESA can aid private-sector advances on solutions to climate problems and support a promising business initiative relevant to the agribusiness sector,” added ESA Director of Earth Observation Programmes Simonetta Cheli. “The technical support and business advice from ESA will undoubtedly provide an essential springboard for constellr in its journey to mission readiness and ultimately the delivery of this crucially important service.”

To know more: constellr, ESA InCubed, DLR

Strengthening InCubed’s role in commercial Earth observation

Posted on by nchimonides

Commercialisation is universally recognised as essential for the future prosperity of all aspects of the European space sector, and Earth observation is no exception. The ESA InCubed programme, a co-funding initiative that helps entrepreneurs bring their innovative ideas to market, has enjoyed enormous success since the launch of its first activity in 2018 and continues to make a prodigious contribution to commercial Earth observation. The InCubed portfolio includes around 60 activities, with an impressive €63 million invested so far.

At the upcoming ESA Council at Ministerial Level, Member States will have the possibility to further empower InCubed in its far-reaching efforts to foster commercial innovation. The programme proposal makes the case for a wider remit, including a set of new ‘Invest Actions’ designed to help boost the European Earth observation economy and reinforce relationships with the private investor community.

Read the full article on www.esa.int.

Φ-lab@ESRIN extends its AI innovation push through collaboration with Leonardo Labs

Posted on by nchimonides

The ESA Director of Earth Observation has signed a letter of intent with the Space Technologies Leonardo Lab (represented by Leonardo, Telespazio and e-GEOS) with a view to jointly developing space-based solutions for Earth observation (EO). After exploring areas of common interest, ESA Φ-lab and the Space Technologies Leonardo Lab will work together on projects that seek to boost the impact on the space sector of transformative technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, High-Performance Computing (HPC), quantum computing and Big Data.

The mission of Φ-lab@ESRIN is to accelerate the future of Earth observation through transformational innovation, thereby strengthening Europe’s world-leading competitiveness in the space sector. Partnerships are an essential building block of that mission, and Φ-lab has concluded a number of agreements with organisations, including venture capitalists, large and small companies and research centres, in order to increase the breadth and reach of its activities.

Two of the principal focus areas of innovation at Φ-lab are Artificial Intelligence (AI) and new computing paradigms like quantum, neuromorphic and edge computing, areas which are also central to the remit of a network of research laboratories set up by Italian company Leonardo. These Leonardo Labs include a Space Technologies research centre in Rome, run by Leonardo together with affiliates e-GEOS and Telespazio.

With such a degree of common interest between Φ-lab and the Space Technologies Leonardo Lab, the idea of a collaborative venture seemed like a natural fit. Leonardo Chief Technology and Innovation Officer Franco Ongaro explains: “The Leonardo Group has a consolidated relationship with ESA, further strengthened by the agreement signed with Φ-lab. The agreement with ESA allows us to pool our skills in areas such as AI, Big Data and quantum computing, combined with the computational capabilities of Leonardo’s HPC infrastructure, davinci-1, to increase the application of innovative methodologies in Earth observation and in the wider space context. The agreement is an expression of the vision of the company, which aims to strengthen the research activities carried out through the Leonardo Labs network – the company’s network of laboratories aimed at the digital sphere – and the consolidation of the open innovation activities that both represent determined factors of growth and competitiveness.”

“ESA Φ-lab is committed to pushing the boundaries of Earth Observation and how it is conceived, designed and implemented,” adds Simonetta Cheli, ESA Director of Earth observation. “The ultimate goal is to boost the innovation element of EO and thereby strengthen Europe’s world-leading competitiveness from both a scientific and commercial point of view. When we started interactions with what are now the Leonardo Labs, we immediately recognised synergies and complementarities that could greatly benefit this vision. We’re very pleased to have now reinforced our relationship with these major industry partners on topics of collaboration that are at the core of what we see as the future of EO.”

Details of the collaboration, which will also be able to draw on the wider Leonardo Labs network, are to be fleshed out as the parties continue their discussions. Nevertheless, a number of exciting topics of interest have already emerged. Neuromorphic Nets for example are AI architectures that better mimic the human brain and its neural networks in order to increase information processing efficiency and speed. Frugal Learning and Neural Ordinary Differential Equations are both types of AI model that are aimed at balancing computational performance and resources. All three of these areas potentially feed into the fourth topic, Onboard/Edge AI, which concerns the recent addition of AI processors to satellite payloads and the associated requirement for low-power/high performance computation. Last but certainly not least, Explainable/Trusted AI deals with the need to improve trust in Machine Learning models through predictability, robustness and explainability.

“The themes that we’ve jointly identified represent some of the most interesting development areas for the future of Earth observation,” comments Giuseppe Borghi, the Head of Φ-lab and the main ESA point of contact for the collaboration. “In exploring these transformative innovation areas together, Φ-lab and the Space Technologies Leonardo Lab intend to enhance the positive impact of such innovations on EO use cases. We expect the results of the partnership to then strengthen the growth of European EO, an ecosystem that is already generating world-leading solutions.”

Pierre Philippe Mathieu, the Head of the Φ-lab Explore Office, highlights the significance of the Leonardo Lab’s namesake: “AI is going through a global renaissance, and Leonardo Da Vinci was certainly one of the biggest icons of the Renaissance, bringing together as he did so many diverse fields of art and science with his creativity. This partnership between Leonardo Lab and ESA will strive to bring some of this Renaissance mindset to the inspiring world of AI4EO, gathering cross-disciplinary teams to develop innovative EO solutions which capitalise on the latest developments in AI techniques.”

To know more: ESA Φ-lab, Leonardo, Telespazio, e-GEOS

InCubed initiatives focus on data quality improvement and change monitoring

Posted on by nchimonides

Three activities launched under co-funding from the ESA InCubed programme respond to customer needs for improved information quality and precise measurement of trends and variations by exploiting Earth observation (EO) assets. Targeted sectors include agri-food, environmental protection, mining and oil and gas.

NEO (NL): SINERGI service

Earth observation data from optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors provides a wealth of information for an ever-increasing number of business applications, but there is often a lack of verification of such data from other sources. Dutch company NEO is developing SINERGI, a novel service that improves reliability by combining EO-derived change detection with crowd-sourced data and publicly available information.

NEO Chief Operating Officer Jan Erik Wien explains: “SINERGI represents a major step forward in the fusion of satellite and non-space data. It uses semantic integration technologies to add validation and additional context to EO-based information services, enabling customers to make informed and data-driven decisions in their operations and helping them to meet their ESG [Environmental, Social and Governance] commitments. Typical Big Data pools feeding into SINERGI might include local government records, planning permission documents or even social media posts.”

The intended customer segments for the service vary from governing authorities in areas such as construction, forestry law enforcement and environmental inspection, to private-sector businesses like insurance companies. SINERGI has now completed its main development and is being piloted with customers in the fields of building-related information and invasive plant species in waterways.

ABACO (IT): FIbEO product

Another example of fusing EO and ground-based data is FIbEO, a product conceived by the ABACO group and aimed at the food production industry. “We recognised a gap in the market in terms of information availability for guaranteeing food quality,” says ABACO Project Manager Marco Bonfigli. “For a given crop, agricultural players need to understand current biomass status, have access to intelligent yield estimates and be able to cross-check compliance with specifications. The FIbEO platform will provide such aggregated insight through ML [Machine Learning] algorithms that draw on both satellite imagery and historical data, ultimately helping growers, consortia and control bodies to create trustworthy food supply chains.”

The first target segment for FIbEO is viniculture, with collaboration currently ongoing with growers in Italy’s Chianti region. The first release of the platform will enable wineries not only to predict output but also to identify dead vines in the field in near-real time.

TRE Altamira (IT): BulletInSAR service

Turning once again to the topic of change detection through SAR sensing, Copernicus Sentinel-1 and other radar imaging constellations enable mm-accurate displacements of the Earth’s surface to be measured from space, providing invaluable information to operators in sectors such as mining, energy, civil engineering and civil protection agencies. TRE Altamira already provides customers with remote sensing ground-deformation information on their assets of interest, but the satellite data stream currently requires significant human processing in order to produce actionable end-user reports.

Feedback from TRE Altamira’s clients identified the requirement for faster response times, greater capacity for monitoring multiple assets and supplementary details on measurement reliability. BulletInSAR is the company’s solution, a tool that will deliver timely, scalable deformation reports by adopting an ML-based unsupervised process to cut out the human bottleneck.

Alessandro Ferretti is the company’s CEO: “Innovation and pushing the technology envelope have always been key elements of TRE Altamira’s identity, and BulletInSAR is no exception. As development gets underway, we’re really pitching for a superior user experience, a solution that will deliver fully automated reports using a cloud-hosted interface with tailored results screening. Co-funding from InCubed is of course a powerful enabler for TRE Altamira, helping to propel us forward as we take market-driven SAR ground-displacement reporting to the next level.”

ESA InCubed Officer Piera di Vito continues the theme: “All three of these activities are a perfect fit for InCubed’s DNA: supporting innovative ideas that spot a commercial need for AI-driven, EO-sourced data and insight. We are proud to see and help sustain such a competitive and dynamic ecosystem in the Earth observation domain, and the fact that SINERGI, FIbEO and BulletInSAR are at different stages in their development amply demonstrates the end-to-end nurturing that InCubed provides, from concept through to market readiness.”

To know more: SINERGI, FIbEO, BulletInSAR

Copernicus Sentinel-1A image courtesy of ESA/DLR Microwaves and Radar Institute/GFZ/e-GEOS/INGV–ESA SEOM INSARAP study, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

ESA team achievement prize awarded to Φ-sat-1 team

Posted on by nchimonides

The Φ-sat-1 team has been recognised in a major award that the Agency grants for achievements promoting the success and public reputation of ESA with the involvement of multiple Directorates. The team, which includes several researchers from Φ-lab, conceived, designed and built the Φ-sat-1 experiment to demonstrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) data processing capabilities onboard satellites.

Φ-sat-1 is the first ESA experiment exploring the potential of AI to improve the efficiency of sensor information streaming from Earth observation (EO) satellites. By filtering out clouds from optical imagery on the satellite itself, only the useful data is downlinked to ground stations, leading to significant bandwidth savings. The concept paves the way for a revolution in EO, as onboard AI processors will enable new services to be deployed quickly and cheaply by uploading applications directly to satellites.

The Peer Review Board for the ESA Team Achievement Award were impressed that the Φ-sat-1 team had transformed an idea into a completely new approach to onboard data processing in a very short time and under tight cost constraints, thanks to the combined efforts of members working across multiple ESA sites and Directorates.

“It was a stimulating experience for our researchers to be part of Φ-sat-1 and its pioneering development of AI-enabled EO satellites,” commented Pierre Philippe Mathieu, Head of the Explore Office. “Working fast in collaborative, interdisciplinary teams is part of our modus operandi at Φ-lab, and so it’s particularly pleasing that the review board recognised these aspects of the project.”

To know more: Φ-lab and Φ-sat