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Category: Philab

Register for ESA’s first Earth observation commercialisation event

Posted on by nchimonides

Registration is now open for ESA’s first-ever Earth Observation Commercialisation Forum. Taking place at ESA Headquarters in Paris from 30 to 31 October 2023, investors, institutions, entrepreneurs and companies of any size from the Earth observation sector will now be able to come together and discuss the commercial potential and challenges of Earth observation, together with the technical, industrial and risk-capital support available to European companies.

Advancing commercial space in Europe is a vital component of ESA Agenda 2025 and the Earth observation sector has an abundance of possibilities that private businesses can capitalise on, from satellites and ground infrastructure through to applications that solve real-world problems with data from space. ESA’s Earth Observation Programme Directorate is organising the first Earth Observation Commercialisation Forum to bring leading stakeholders of the fast-growing Earth observation commercial space sector under the same roof.

Read the full article on www.esa.int.

Additional commercialisation innovation opportunities for Portugal with InCubed

Posted on by nchimonides

After confirming their support to ESA InCubed at the 2022 Ministerial Council, Portugal and ESA are announcing a new call for co-funding innovative Earth observation (EO) business cases.

With its mission to support commercially successful business activities in the Earth observation sector, the ESA InCubed programme has a fundamental role to play in promoting growth and competitiveness in the space economies of its Participating States. Portugal is a well-established subscriber to InCubed, and has recently confirmed its intention to open a new call for applying for InCubed co-funding.

Portuguese entities can now submit ideas, which will then be assessed by InCubed and the Portuguese Delegation. Activities selected will need to meet the needs of the Portuguese National Space Strategy, demonstrate a credible return on investment for the company and provide a balance of subject areas and geographical locations within Portugal.

Proposals can be submitted at any time, with two evaluation periods per year. In 2023, the first evaluation is scheduled for early July and the second for Quarter 4. Further details can be found on the Portuguese Space Agency website, and an online webinar to explain InCubed opportunities in Portugal will take place on 23 May at 11:00 CEST. Applicants for InCubed support from any participating state should submit their proposals on ideas.esa.int.

“This initiative from Portugal amply demonstrates the broad commitment to InCubed,” commented Head of the Φ-lab Invest Office Michele Castorina. “We will continue to work hand in hand with our participating states to increase access to finance for the European EO sector, and I look forward to seeing a host of new proposals from Portuguese enterprises.”

Carolina Sá is the Earth Observation officer at the Portuguese Space Agency: “Earth Observation and all its potentialities are a central component of Portugal’s National Strategy for Space. The Portuguese Space Agency believes that this funding opportunity for innovative products and services will give a fundamental boost to our national Earth Observation ecosystem.”

To Know more: ESA InCubed, Portuguese Space Agency

New call released for UK InCubed proposals

Posted on by nchimonides

The latest ESA InCubed call for the United Kingdom is now out. UK entities are invited to submit proposals seeking to develop innovative and commercially viable products and services that exploit the value of Earth observation. The deadline for submissions is 31 May.

The ESA InCubed programme focuses on co-funding commercial development activities across the entire Earth observation (EO) value chain, including satellites, ground applications, downstream applications and new EO business models. InCubed works in very close cooperation with its participating Member States and periodically issues dedicated country-oriented calls.

The most recent national call has been released in collaboration with the UK Space Agency and is open to UK industry and academia. A total of £1 400 000 of funding has been made available, with no upper or lower limit for individual activities. Idea pitches and proposals will be jointly assessed by InCubed and the UK Space Agency, based on criteria such as financial return for the British space sector, level of innovation and wider environmental, social or economic benefits.

Selected activities must finish within 18 months of starting and be able to demonstrate market readiness at completion.

There will be a webinar on 24 April to guide entities on the application process and answer questions relating to the call. Requests to join the event can be sent by completing the online form.

Details of the call can be found here. Applicants should submit their proposals on ideas.esa.int, and the closing date for entries is 31 May 2023.

To Know more: ESA InCubed, UK Space Agency

AI for Sustainable Development Goals initiative yields user-focused solutions to enhance food security

Posted on by nchimonides

The EO & AI for SDGs Innovation Initiative was set up by Φ-lab and the World Food Programme (WFP) Innovation Accelerator to find commercially viable Earth observation and Artificial Intelligence-based solutions to global hunger issues. Launched in 2021, the initiative short-listed four start-ups and then supported them in designing and testing their solutions with users and WFP stakeholders in several countries.

Earth observation (EO) and artificial intelligence (AI) have a significant role to play in helping to increase food security. The focus of ESA Φ-lab in its research and co-funding support is always on innovation led by market and user needs, with particular emphasis on integrating emerging technologies such as quantum computing, blockchain and crowdsourcing.

These principles were very much to the fore when Φ-lab and WFP launched the EO & AI for SDGs Innovation Initiative. In selecting the finalists from the pool of entrants in the challenge, the panel sought commercially oriented start-ups with solutions which could scale up and were sustainable. WFP country offices and programme units were also consulted to gain user input.

As a result of the selection process, four start-ups were identified, all of which were deemed to have the right combination of technical prowess, flexibility and readiness for coaching. All four then attended a four-day workshop where they worked with Φ-lab and WFP stakeholders on initial co-design and piloting plans, before going off to develop their solutions in detail using the human-centred design approach.

With the initiative completed, now is a good time to look back over the progress and achievements of each project.

IBISA: forecast index insurance

Luxembourg start-up IBISA worked with the WFP Guatemala Country Office to design and test a new forecast index insurance product for smallholder farmers in the country’s Chiquimula region. The pioneering IBISA insurance model triggers action based on climate forecasts and observations, granting farmers advance pay-outs ahead of a forecast period of consecutive lack-of-rainfall or dry days. In this way the smallholders can take action to prepare and protect the harvest from damage.

The product is based on a combination of the ECMWF ERA5 dataset, 10-day forecast data and field visits, with pricing ensuring that policies are affordable for local people. IBISA and WFP are currently working together to engage local governments and communities, and product launch is expected later this year.

agriBORA: crop yield prediction and monitoring

agriBORA is a German company with operations in Kenya. Its platform uses machine-learning (ML) processing of satellite and ground-based data to monitor and forecast crop yields for Farmer Service Centres (FSCs), which provide information, finance and market connections to help farmers move from small-scale to commercial production. Within months of launching the pilot, agriBORA had enlisted 30 FSCs and thousands of farmers, leading to the development of models for both yield prediction and crop classification.

The pilot highlighted the fact that user geo-tagging is an essential factor for training the ML model and thereby increasing prediction accuracy. In terms of further development of the platform, agriBORA is therefore seeking to incentivise FSCs and individual farmers to geo-tag their land so that the precision of the insights they receive back from agriBORA continues to improve.

Oxford Earth Observation Limited: hydrological drought index

Specialising in water management, Oxford Earth Observation is a British start-up that has developed a hydrological drought index based on precipitation, soil moisture and surface water availability. Rather than simply relying on rainfall like the Standard Precipitation Index, the company’s more comprehensive model factors in additional components such as water run-off and infiltration to groundwater, in order to give a more complete picture of green vegetation growth.

In trials in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, Oxford Earth Observation and WFP found that growth forecasting improved by an average of 20% compared with the Standard Precipitation Index. WFP is now planning further validation of the new model and a wider roll-out in drought-prone areas.

RAMANI: CHEETAH

Highway tolls, customs charges and bribes can severely eat into the profits of players in the food supply chain, while poor road quality can destroy crops due to excessive vibration. Dutch company RAMANI has produced an application dubbed Chains of Human Intelligence Towards Efficiency and Equity in Agro-food Trade along the Trans-Africa Highway (CHEETAH). Piloted with sellers, traders and transporters in Ghana and Burkina Faso, the CHEETAH application collected crowdsourced data on charges and measured road conditions through both very high resolution optical satellite imagery and the motion sensor of users’ phones.

The result was a wealth of information that helps to monitor unforeseen costs and protect produce in transit. Possible future expansions of the application include a digital marketplace for crops, access to emergency vehicle repair and measuring CO2 savings.

“Collaborating with WFP Innovation Accelerator on this initiative has been a fantastic opportunity to see the real-world needs of growers and traders in often challenging regions,” commented Φ-lab data scientist Nicolas Longépé. “As shown by the skills and output of the four finalists, AI-powered Earth observation can be a vital tool for humanitarian development, and ultimately the final proof of the benefits is in the ability to improve lives and outcomes in communities around the world.”

To know more: Fighting hunger from space, WFP Innovation Accelerator

Image courtesy of agriBORA

Φ-lab and UNICEF joint dengue fever research receives further award

Posted on by nchimonides

A project carried out by Φ-lab in conjunction with UNICEF has been selected as one of the UN agency’s top research initiatives of 2022. The success of the project, which developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) solution for quantifying dengue fever outbreaks, has led to its operationalisation phase receiving significant funding from the Wellcome Trust.

Dengue fever is a major public health issue in the world’s tropical and sub-tropical regions, with the disease registered as endemic in more than 100 countries according to the World Health Organisation. Forecasting outbreaks has traditionally been particularly challenging due to the complex nature of how dengue spreads, but pioneering research by Φ-lab in conjunction with UNICEF has shown that modelling from Earth observation data can successfully predict instances of the disease one month in advance.

The climate-based ensemble model uses multiple Machine Learning approaches to take account of geographical variations in dengue incidence and proved to be more accurate than previous predictive techniques when piloted in Brazil and Peru.

The importance of the research was initially recognised by UNESCO in its 2021 Global Top 100 list of projects solving problems related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The possibility of further acclaim followed last year, when the project was put forward for the Best of UNICEF Research 2022 competition. This annual challenge seeks to promote research best practices and to award activities with a high potential for impact on policies and programmes that benefit children. Submissions are assessed on the basis of a number of criteria, including originality, relevance, methodology and local engagement.

As a result of the peer review and panel evaluation, Φ-lab’s research was short-listed as one of the three projects in the critical ‘Every child survives’ goal area. In fact, the project was given pride of place in the enticing opening sentence of the UNICEF report on the finalists: “Imagine creating a machine learning model that uses data about rainfall to forecast disease outbreaks.” The report goes on to explain that the 12 selected projects all deliver results for children by informing decision-making, shaping policy and raising public awareness, showing “not only the power of innovation in the face of emergency and crisis, but also the virtues of agility, endurance and scalability.”

Results from the research showing the state-by-state correlation between dengue incidence rate, maximum temperature and humidity in Brazil

The dengue project was then showcased at a UNICEF award ceremony. In a video played to the online audience, Hanoch Barlevi, UNICEF Disaster Risk Reduction/Climate Changes Assessment Specialist emphasised the benefits of the endeavour: “In tandem with the [UNICEF] Innovation Team, and partners like the European Space Agency, we have explored different approaches and techniques and technologies to strengthen health systems, making them better prepared, which will boost estimates of the current and future projection of dengue distribution for children today and tomorrow.”

The foundation laid by Φ-lab’s research has now attracted funding for the crucial next phase, developing an end-user application for predicting dengue outbreaks. The Wellcome Trust has granted over €600 000 to the University of California San Diego, New Light Technologies Inc. and UNICEF to produce the tool, initially for Latin America and then potentially expanded to other regions and diseases.

“We’re truly delighted to receive such recognition for our work,” commented Rochelle Schneider dos Santos, the Φ-lab researcher who led the project. “We hope and believe the dengue research will be a game changer for outbreak modelling, and the multi-disciplinary nature of the awards is particularly rewarding – sustainable development from UNESCO and children’s health from UNICEF. In addition, the grant from Wellcome is another example of how Φ-lab’s AI-powered research can pave the way to third-party funding and customer-focused products and services.”

To know more: UNICEF, UNESCO, Wellcome Trust

Competition details and extracts courtesy of Best of UNICEF Research 2022, UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight, Florence, 2022

ESA Φ-labbers share stories about their Earth observation activities

Posted on by nchimonides

A new video provides a chance to meet researchers and business innovators from ESA Φ-lab and get an overview of their stimulating working environment.

The work of ESA Φ-lab covers a remarkably wide scope in both Earth observation (EO) research and support to the commercialisation of EO products and services. In this brief but informative video, Φ-lab members from both the Explore and Invest offices talk about some of the fascinating activities they are involved in, embracing topics such as dengue outbreak risk assessment, embedded artificial intelligence on satellites and collaborating with EO start-ups.

Φ-lab is always looking for new recruits, so if you are interested in pushing the boundaries in leading-edge EO research, please get in touch.

Boosting market traction for agri-monitoring service

Posted on by nchimonides

Support from ESA’s Earth observation InCubed commercialisation programme has enabled two companies, GeoVille and EOX, to secure a major contract to provide an Austrian Area Monitoring Service. The consortium’s EO-WIDGET software provides the farming sector with critical satellite-derived information and is a key tool in compliance monitoring for the European Common Agricultural Policy.

Agricultural monitoring has gained ever-increasing attention recently in the face of a major global food crisis and growing concerns over food security. Within Europe, the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a fundamental pillar of the continent’s food supply. The CAP now requires national governments to carry out increasingly extensive checks and controls of agricultural production and payment claims from farmers.

Read the full article on www.esa.int

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