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ISSN 2277 - 3134

JANUARY 2012 VOL 02 ISSUE 06

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Geospatial World I January 20124

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PUBLICATIONS TEAMManaging Editor Prof. Arup DasguptaEditor - Europe Prof. Ian DowmanEditor - Latin America (Honorary) Tania Maria SausenSr. Associate Editor (Honorary) Dr. Hrishikesh SamantExecutive Editor Bhanu RekhaProduct Manager Shivani LalAssistant Editors Deepali Roy, Aditi Bhan, Vaibhav AroraSub-Editor Anand Kashyap

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CIRCULATION TEAMCirculation Manager Vijay Kumar Singh

07 Editorial 54 News and Newsmakers 2011 64 Events

ARTICLES

Geospatial ecosystem

Growth is the best policy

Prof Ian Dowman, Editor - Europe

Technology Trends

Keeping an eye on the planet

Prof. Arup Dasgupta, Managing Editor

Applications

Here, there, everywhere

Dr. Hrishikesh Samant, Sr. Associate Editor (Honorary)

INTERVIEW

Matt O'Connell

CEO, President and Director, GeoEye

“Extracting information from imagery is the future”

20

8

32

46

42

Advisory Board

Abbas Rajabifard President,GSDI Association

Jack DangermondPresident, Esri

Shailesh Nayak SecretaryMinistry of Earth SciencesGovernment of India

Mark ReichardtPresident and CEOOpen Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

Aida Opoku Mensah Director - ICT DivisionUN Economic Commission for Africa

Josef StroblDirector, Centre for Geoinformatics,University of Salzburg, Austria

Vanessa Lawrence CBDirector General and CEO,Ordnance Survey, UK

Matthew M O'ConnellPresident and CEO GeoEye

Bryn FosburghVice PresidentTrimble

Juergen DoldPresident, Hexagon Geosystems

Preetha PulusaniChairman and CEO DeepTarget Inc.

Derek Clarke Chief Director-Survey and Mapping & National Geospatial InformationDepartment of Rural Development & Land Reform, South Africa

Kamal K SinghChairman and CEORolta Group

Satellite Based Commercial EO Industry

Time to get down

to business

Bhanu Rekha

SHARE

1/9/2011/9/201

n April 1, 1960 NASA launched TIROS 1, a 150 kilogram, experimental satellite with twovidicon cameras to image the earth at a resolution of 320 metre. On January 8, 2012China launched Ziyuan 3, a 2650 kilogram satellite with three CCD cameras

imaging the earth in stereo at 2.5 metre resolution. Between these two events is a story of atechnology that has taken the world by storm and yet has not quite achieved its promise.

Today earth observation programmes are there in almost every country. A whole industry hassprung up for the manufacture and launching of satellites, data acquisition, data processing,distribution and value addition. The US pioneered the privatisationof earth observation systems and was closely followed by Canada,France and Germany. Other countries like India, China and Russiakept it under the government. The UN debated and evolved a policy on the principles of remote sensing. Every country with aspace programme evolved their data policies. Google came outwith its game-changing Google Earth which put earth observationdata in the hands of the common person.

In the area of science, particularly meteorology, environment andoceanography, the success is very high. While funding for theseprogrammes are fully governmental and they suffer from a lack ofpriority, yet the utilisation and benefits are enormous. Areas ofpublic good such as disaster management are now criticallydependent on earth observation systems.

In spite of such a vibrant scenario, there are troubling issues. Themarket remains largely with the government and the defenceestablishments. Earth observation data cannot stand alone. It hasto be part of a data ensemble for practical applications. While some industries are specialising in creating such ensem-bles, by and large remotely sensed data seems to revel in its unique identity. The promise ofcommercial adoption for mapping has not been realised. Privatisation thus is restricted tolarge government contracts. Perhaps this has led to complacency among the players and notenough has been done to create more clients in the civilian industry.

The time has come for the earth observation industry to take a closer look at itself. In particular it has to find out why it remains the preserve of governments. Short term quickfixes are not the answer. It requires some out of the box thinking.

EditorSpeak

7Geospatial World I January 2012

Prof. Arup Dasgupta

Managing [email protected]

O

Earth Observation - A story of tech

marvel and unkept promise


Geospatial information and technology have great potential to be a public commodity and a

panacea to the larger challenges facing global economic and social well-being. It therefore

becomes imperative to have enabling, market –oriented policy frameworks in place to give

impetus to the geospatial ecosystem. Here’s a look at some government policies across the

world and their impact on the utility of geospatial technology

GEOSPATIAL ECOSYSTEM


It is widely recognised that geospatial data has a very important role to play in governmentaland commercial activities today. But how does

geospatial data fit into a commercial model? A greatdeal of geospatial data has been collected by govern-ments using taxpayers' money. Users therefore do not think it fair that they should pay a second time to buy data. Much of the high resolution satellitedata has been collected with subsidies from govern-ments, through defence contracts or by governmentsubsidies to the space industry designed to boostdevelopment of high technology. Then there are gov-ernment restrictions ondata sales and regionaldirectives that regulatethe structure and use ofgeospatial data. All thesefactors lead to a compli-cated market for geospa-tial data. This article willtry to unravel some ofthese complications andsuggest ways forward.

HISTORY OF

GEOSPATIAL DATA

An appropriate startingpoint to understand theseissues is to look at the his-tory of geospatial data inmodern times. In 1950,geospatial data was synonymous with paper map. Mapswere compiled and updated using ground and aerial sur-veying. Broadly speaking, maps at scales of 1:5000 andsmaller were made and updated by national mappingorganisations (NMOs), while maps of larger scales werecreated for specific purposes, often engineering projects,by commercial companies. In addition, cadastral plans forrecording land ownership were collected by land registryoffices, which in some cases would be the same organisa-tion responsible for topographic mapping. NMOs providedtheir maps to the government, often for defence purposesand sold them to the public. The link between civilianmapping and military mapping led to some restrictions oncivilian use of maps. Even today, large scale maps andaerial photographs are not available to the public in manycountries. As the resolution of images increased, so did

the restriction on their use in certain countries. With the introduction of computers and digitisation of

data, the picture changed rapidly. Not only did existingmaps become available in digital form, data was collecteddigitally and the importance of location in informationanalysis gained significance. Today, we have reached a sit-uation where location information is both easily available,through GNSS in mobile communication devices, and ishighly desirable for many services. But the restrictions,both historic and those created due to commercial anddefence interests, and by the need to transfer data easily,multiplied.

A further aspect of this equation is that the productionof geospatial data tends to be technology led. One reasonfor the widespread public interest in location is because of its ability to provide positional information. GNSS provides position. Microchip technology provides themeans to receive the data in a car or a mobile device, sothe public wants to use this new resource. While thisaugurs well for the sale of satellite navigation devices andmobile phones, if people do not find benefits of thisresource, they do not follow up and purchase updatedinformation. The industry still has to find the 'killer app'for the public at large.

Certain countries have adopted the technology morequickly than others. The legislative approach of govern-ments of these countries in bringing market-orientedpolicies and enabling the users to capitalise on such a

Figure 1: Factors affecting the use of geospatial data in a country

versatile technology is the major reason for the growth.Geospatial technology and information has great potentialto be a public commodity and a panacea to the larger chal-lenges facing global economic and social well-being.However, this requires the right policy framework, such asthe promotion of other technologies including telecom-munication, broadband and the internet, to unlock itspotential. It therefore becomes imperative to look at thegovernment policies and how they aid or hamper thegrowth of uptake of geospatial technology. Figure 1 sum-marises the current situation.

PRICE

Let us first establish the difference between price, costand value. The price of a commodity is the amount thebuyer spends to purchase it, cost is the amount spent toproduce it and value is what the buyer believes the productor service is worth to them. Clearly, price, cost and valueare not the same and it would be fair to say that the pricewhich a government puts on anything is unlikely to berelated to its cost. A buyer is interested only in the price

and value. In the case of, say, a LiDAR survey of an urbanarea carried out by a commercial company, the price willbe the cost of the survey plus a profit for the company. Thebuyer decides whether this is good value. The profit to thecompany will be less if there is strong competition in bid-ding for the work. The price of a high resolution satelliteimage though is likely to be much less than the real cost ofproducing it. This is because the cost of developing andbuilding the satellite may not be factored in as it has beencovered by the government and the government may havea standing order for the data which effectively covers thecost, leaving the general public to only pay a marginalcost. A buyer would not be able to afford the image if thetotal cost was included. The market therefore is distorted.This is because the high resolution satellite remote sens-ing industry is primarily driven by defence and intelligenceagencies. Most of these agencies have invested to supportthe birth of commercial satellite companies. For instance,private companies GeoEye and Astrium have been fundedby their respective governments. However, DigitalGlobe,which started as a bonafide private company without any


Digital data and maps: Changing the scenario


funding from the government, ended up with defence asits prime market. These companies are controlled by theUnited States Department of Defense (DoD) to an extentthat it provides indirect leadership and direction.

There is a strong argument that data produced withpublic money, i.e. by an NMO, should be free. The oppos-

ing argument however is that keeping the data up-to-dateand adding value comes at a certain cost which should beborne by the customer. The introduction of new technolo-gies, such as open source or the cloud, too would involveadditional cost. In many current NMO business models,the industry has a big role to play. Private companies suf-fer if NMOs have a monopoly on sales of this data. Produc-ers of value-added products would be at a competitive dis-advantage in absence of clear policies or uniform prac-tices to guide them on access to and reuse of public sectorinformation. Some NMOs have sought to overcome thisissue by establishing partnerships with the industry. Ord-nance Survey in UK, for example, has over 200 partner-ships. The businesses range from global giants to singleentrepreneurs, but all use location data to create businessopportunities. Business models of NMOs vary enormous-ly: in Europe for example, cost recovery amongst NMOsvaries from 0 to 100%.

In the United States, public private partnerships (PPP)are widely used and offer significant cost benefits. KumarNavulur, Director Next Gen Products, DigitalGlobeinforms that the company has such a partnership. He fur-ther adds that the private industry designs, builds andlaunches the satellite and the government uses mecha-nisms such as NextView and EnhancedView contracts tosupplement and complement their imagery needs.

E-GOVERNANCE

Electronic governance (e-governance) refers to the use ofinformation technology and the internet to improve theeffectiveness of communication within government andbetween government and citizens. In the geospatial arena,

this implies a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) to facilitatethe exchange and use of geospatial data. A major advan-tage of a government-wide SDI is that it makes usersaware of the power of location and can therefore increasethe need for geospatial data. Heads of NMOs in Europeobserve that a major benefit of INSPIRE is the increasedcollaboration between government departments andagencies and raised awareness amongst politicians ingeneral about the importance of geospatial data. Indone-sia has a National SDI Development project which linksnot only government departments but also the privatesector and local governments, with participation frommore than 500 nodal agencies. The government depart-ments include the national surveying agency BIG (former-ly BAKOSURTANAL), National Land Agency, National

Data produced with

public money

(by NMOs) should be

free

Keeping data up-to-date,

adding value and intro-

ducing new technologies

costs money which

should be borne by the

customer

Pricing wars

VSVS

Table 1: Constraints in establishing SDIs

Technical

Semantic interoperability

Exchange formats of geodata limit the exchange of data among differentorganisations

Different software systems

Transmitting large geospatial datasets and poor quality of electric power

Sometimes government bodies on different levels produce similar referencedata with different specifications according to their own needs, which influences the budget that is available in a country

Financial

High cost of creating good quality spatial data

Cost of maintaining data types and ability to adapt to changing user requirements.due to technical and financial processes

Ring-fenced funding which limits transfer across departments

Institutional and cultural

Lack of knowledge of the power of spatial data

No open knowledge of available geospatial datasets

Institutions continue to operate in silos with little or no cooperation or communication among key stakeholders

Institutional and individual protectiveness/jealousy

Lack of knowledge of use of geospatial information

Lack of mandated authority to act and identification of champions

Lack of long-term commitment to building a community of cooperation and trust

Lack of geospatial information that meets the requirements of users

Administrative

Cost sharing issues and issues of legal responsibility and national security

Lack of clear policies and means to monitor compliance

Issues of privacy; security and intellectual property

Aeronautics and Aerospace Institute and the Ministries ofForestry, Public Works, Transport, Agriculture, Marineand Fisheries.

Absence of an SDI would lead to lack of awarenessabout the importance of geospatial data, implying thatpoliticians are less likely to put resources into the acquisi-tion and management of spatial data.

The 12th GSDI Conference in Singapore in 2010 wit-nessed discussions on SDIs and on the limitations to theirdevelopment. Table 1 summarises some of the constraintsin establishing SDIs.

Many of these issues can be resolved with simple rulesto control access to the information as required by locallaws and policies. The cultural issues need to be dealtwith through education. Users and politicians too need tobe educated and be demonstrated that in a networkedenvironment, everyone's data quality tends to improve ifthere are mutual internal feedbacks. According to AbbasRajabifard, President, GSDI Society, developing a success-ful SDI depends as much upon issues such as politicalsupport, clarifying the business objectives of the SDI, sus-taining a culture of sharing, maintaining reliable financialsupport and enlisting the cooperation of all members ofthe community, as upon technical issues relating to spa-tial data access, networking and standards. Therefore,developing a successful SDI within a jurisdictional levelmust be seen as a socio-technical, rather than a purelytechnical exercise. Clare Hadley, INSPIRE Delivery and UKLocation Programme Alignment Manager, Ordnance Sur-vey acknowledges that having a legal requirement toimplement INSPIRE is a strong lever to achieving the dataand service interoperability which the geospatial commu-nity has long wanted and which in the UK is encapsulatedin the UK Location Strategy.

LEGISLATIVE CONSTRAINTS

NMOs are regulated by governments and as shown earli-er, their operations are constrained by the government.

There are also other legislative constraints. Privacy is onesuch constraint and the use of maps and images may berestricted in some countries, as Google has found. Boththe free availability of satellite images and Street Viewimages on the internet have been contested in courts inseveral countries but Google has a policy of protectingindividual’s privacy where people are concerned. Theseconstraints do not seriously affect the use of the data how-ever. There are also privacy issues in the use of cadastraldata. In some countries, information on properties isavailable on the internet while in others, the same infor-mation is considered as a breach of privacy laws.

INFRASTRUCTURE FOR SOCIETAL BENEFITS

Governments often have a policy to support industry andprivate commerce in their country. Examples of this arehigh technology activities such as telecommunication andenergy generation and transmission. These technologies,once established, are available to society at large to

Geospatial World I January 2012 13

“Developing a successful SDI within a jurisdictional level must be seen as a socio-technical, rather than a purely technical exercise.”\

Abbas RajabifardPresident, GSDI Society

Governments have a responsibility to provide essential services to itscitizens. For example, in-caar vehicle navigation for emergency servicesenables ambulances to reach their destination as quicklyy as possible

Cou

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14 Geospatial World I January 2012

enable citizens and businesses to work efficiently. Thegovernment has a responsibility to provide essential serv-ices to its citizens and governments want to do this as effi-ciently as possible and at a minimum cost. For example,in-car vehicle navigation for emergency services enablesambulances and fire engines to get to where they areneeded as quickly as possible. Greater accuracy in GNSS,brought about by augmentation systems like EuropeanGeostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS),reduces errors and benefits society. Having recognised theneed for GNSS, governments look for means to recoversome of the cost and road use taxation becomes one suchoption. Similar technology can be used by insurance com-panies to tailor car insurance prices to vehicle usage. Gov-ernments also need to be prepared for disasters, implyingrequirement of high technology communications andaccess to satellite data for emergency response centres.The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services(INCOIS) is a national agency of the Government of India. Itprovides ocean information and advisory services to thesociety, industry, government and scientific communitythrough sustained ocean observation and constantimprovements through systematic and focussed research.It also houses the Indian Tsunami Early Warning Centre.Co-location of these services not only provides an essen-tial service but also offers benefits including weather fore-casts, sea surface state and potential fishing zones whichbenefit society in general as well as fishermen.

Thus we have a situation where the government setsup an infrastructure to provide services to society, which is available for commercial use, but what is the pricingmodel?

REGIONAL AND GLOBAL INITIATIVES

The influences at the national level, discussed above, canbe extrapolated to both regional and international levels. Aprime example of this is the European Union (EU). TheEuropean Commission has an action plan for growth inEurope, known as Digital Agenda for Europe, to make thebest use of information and communication technology(ICT) to speed up economic recovery and lay the founda-tions for a sustainable digital future. Although not specifi-cally targeted at geospatial data, this is required for infra-structure development. This can benefit the geospatialarena as the INSPIRE directive, for instance, requires theestablishment of an infrastructure for spatial informationand the Directive on Public Access to Environmental Infor-mation obliges public authorities to provide timely accessto environmental information. Galileo is another initiativeby the EU which will provide location data to government,businesses and individuals. During the development ofGalileo, it became very difficult to find a business modelfor it and in the end, the EU was left to fund the system.The benefits of Galileo will be considerable but the price ofdata will be set by the EU, not by commercial considera-tions. Global Monitoring for Environment and Security(GMES) is another EU activity which produces geospatial

Global

> Global Geospatial Information Management: A United

Nations initiative for development of global geospatial informa-

tion and to promote its use in addressing key global challenges

> Group on Earth Observations (GEO): Works to establish

international frameworks to make the use of geospatial data

more efficient and benefitting the society

National

> Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI): National level initia-

tive by various countries to facilitate the exchange and use of

geospatial data

Regional (Europe)

> European Commission's Digital Agenda for Europe:

Aimed to make the best use of ICT to speed up economic recovery

and lay the foundations for a sustainable digital future

> Galileo: An initiative by the European Union (EU) to provide

location data to government, businesses and individuals.

> Global Monitoring for Environment & Security

(GMES): Another EU activity which produces geospatial data,

specifically as a service to society

Geospatial initiatives

data, specifically as a service to society. Future fundingand the policy for access to the data are uncertain at thepresent. EU policies also feed down to national andregional levels. Germany and The Netherlands, for exam-ple, have a mandate for local authorities to provide infor-mation online to citizens.

There are other influences on government which arenot mandatory. International organisations such as theUnited Nations (UN) and the Group on Earth Observations(GEO) work to establish international frameworks whichwill make the use of geospatial data more efficient and inparticular, benefit the society. The UN Regional Carto-graphic Conferences have brought together NMOs andother agencies and societies to encourage exchange ofinformation and collaboration. Recently, the High LevelForum on UN Global Geospatial Information Management(GGIM) has been set up to coordinate use of geospatialinformation among various nations. GEO does the samefor earth observation data. These bodies influence thegovernment but action is only on a best effort basis. Inorder to justify participation in these initiatives, govern-ments need to either demonstrate some returns to theircitizens or these activities should contribute towardsmeeting policy objectives. José Achache, Director, GEOSecretariat says: 'I think there is only one way to createawareness and that is to demonstrate what you can do. Sowe are really focussing on developing and demonstratingcapabilities rather than selling and over-selling space andsaying we can do this and we can do that.' He cites thecase of monitoring of forests which started with six partic-ipants but others quickly joined in when they became

aware of the potential of the technique. On the other hand,Geoff Sawyer, Secretary General, European Association ofRemote Sensing Companies (EARSC) observes that therole of GEO is to co-ordinate governmental interests andthat governments have a strong stake in earth observa-tion. He also adds that companies working in commercialmarkets do not see a lot of contacts or activities from pub-lic sector committees and so do not play a strong role inGEO.

THE POWER OF CITIZENS

A recent development has been crowdsourcing, or volun-teered geographic information (VGI). The best knownexample is OpenStreetMap, where volunteers providegeospatial information which can be accessed by anybody,free of charge. It has its advantages and disadvantages,but what is certain is that it will affect the market by pro-viding free data which will compete with NMO products. Atpresent, there are no known instances of any legislationrelated to the use of VGI but DJ Coleman and colleaguesargue that legislation is necessary 'to recognise to accountfor and balance the rights of both the producing communi-ty and the mapping organisations.'

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

We have demonstrated that the geospatial market is com-plicated and not subject to the commercial imperative ofsupply and demand. In many areas, the role of the govern-ment is crucial both in promoting the use of geospatialdata and in being the main buyer of the data. We have seenthat INSPIRE in Europe has increased collaborationbetween government departments and agencies andraised awareness amongst politicians in general about theimportance of geospatial data. In regions such as Africa,there is a crucial need to raise awareness amongst politi-cians so that more resources can be put into spatial datainfrastructure. A major challenge is how to develop themarket. 80% revenues of the main companies come from

Crowdsourcing will provide free data which will compete with NMOproducts

“Companies working in commercialmarkets do not see a lot of contacts or activities from public sector committees.”

Geoff SawyerSecretary General, European Association of

Remote Sensing Companies


defence, 15% from civil government and a mere 5% fromcommercial consumers. This ratio of income source doesnot encourage development of the commercial marketand there is also a great risk in being dependent on a sin-gle source of income.

The problem lies in treating data as a commodity andnot as a service. Innovations, such as treating data as aservice, can reduce production costs and at the sametime enhance sales because then the price can be set tothe volume of data used or some other such measure.Also it reduces the cost of holding data as far as the useris concerned. The problem in such a scenario is that thecompanies are dependent on government support and achange in policy could mean the end of the company.

A further problem is the supply of lower resolutiondata because there is only a small market for such data. The need for lower resolution satellites with betterre-visit is essential for applications such as agriculture.Data for environmental monitoring is not commercial, but

is still essential in instances like climate studies and forest monitoring. We have seen the long process in theUS to finance a follow up on Landsat, demonstrating that satellites for this type of data can only be financed by government. RapidEye and DMCii appear to be successful in this market, but it is still early days for thesecompanies.

Way forwardIt is clear that government is the key player in the marketfor geospatial data. It is only in customised surveys forspecific projects that a free market operates and eventhen, the government generated data may be used. However, there is no comprehensive information on which model is the most efficient and even if such information did exist, one model would not fit all, takinginto account historical influences and the current state of development. There is a need for more information on the models used by NMOs and analysis on how thesecan be transferred to other organisations. There is also aneed to expand the commercial market for satelliteimagery. This can be achieved partly by educating politi-cians about developing infrastructure using geospatialdata, but also enhancing the role of commercial oper-ating companies.

Prof Ian Dowman, Editor - Europe, [email protected]

Innovations, such as treating data as a service,can reduce production costs and at the sametime ennhance sales because then the price canbe set to the volume of data used or some oth-er such measurre

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Time to get down to bTime to get down to b

Born out of the sheer need for superior high resolution earth observation (EO) data at the turn of tthe millennium, satellite based commercial EO industry has gained significant ground supported by immproved technology, increased global coverage and reduced government restrictions on data availabiliity and sale. However a decade after its inception, the industry continues to be state controlled annd lacks the vision to organise itself as a market-driven industry thereby limiting its potential annd reach. Geospatial World explores the dynamics of commercial EO industry in the backdrop of unsettling economic scenario and the way forward...

Satellite Based Commercial EO Industry

GENESIS AND EVOLUTION

Satellite based earth observation (EO), traditionally driv-en by national governments, found its footing commer-cially with the launch of IKONOS, world's first high reso-lution earth observation satellite, in September 1999 bySpace Imaging. This launch was preceded by US policyshift and reports predicting rapid market adoption for

high resolution satellite imagery with significant shortand long term growth. Soon, DigitalGlobe launchedQuickBird in October 2001. Space Imaging was acquiredby ORBIMAGE in September 2005 and was later renamedas GeoEye. It further launched GeoEye-1 in 2008 capableof providing sub-metre resolution imagery. After Quick-Bird, DigitalGlobe announced plans to build two next-generation, high-resolution imagery satellites, World-View-1 and WorldView-2, launched in September 2007and October 2009 respectively.

The companies grew internationally, driven by theneed for high resolution EO data within the US andaround the world. However, the industry had difficultyproving its untested business models to non-defence civilagencies, state and local governments and the privatesector. While the defence and intelligence communityhad a long heritage of using satellite imagery, the inte-gration of a new technology into commercial marketstook longer than anticipated. The US government backedthe industry with 'buy commercial first' data policy allow-ing the two operators (DigitalGlobe and GeoEye) toemerge as market leaders for commercial EO data.

Close on heels in Canada, Radarsat-2, a follow-on toRadarsat-1 by MDA, was launched in 2007 to serve theworld with SAR imagery. The trend of commercial EOsatellites started in Europe with Spot Image (now a sub-sidiary of EADS Astrium), which operates SPOT series ofEO satellites. RapidEye started a new trend with a con-stellation of five EO satellites in 2008. Taking full advan-tage of the fully-integrated combined resources of itsSpot Image and Infoterra subsidiaries, Astrium Services'GEO-Information division is providing EO products andservices with exclusive access to SPOT, TerraSAR-X andTanDEM-X. The recently launched Pléiades 1A (first inthe proposed constellation of four satellites along withPléiades 1B, SPOT-6 &7) will put Astrium Services intothe very high resolution club.

Technology played an important role in the development of commercial EO satellites, in particularthe advances in optical and radar sensors made thedevelopment of smaller, cheaper and more agile satel-lites possible. Increased global coverage and reducedgovernment restrictions on data availability and sale are increasing the appeal of satellite imagery in the private sector. Let us take a peek into how ingeniouscommercial EO satellite operators are getting in servingtheir customers and the changing dynamics of the industry in the face of stiff competition and unstable economic scenario.


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PRODUCTS OVER PIXELS

With awareness and utility of EOdata touching sophisticatedlevels, satellite operatorsare inching to go beyondsimply gathering pix-els. Operators areadding value to theimagery, fusingdata from differ-ent sensors, pro-cessing imageryon the fly,decreasing turn-around times, edu-cating the usersand providing a hostof other services. MattO'Connell, CEO, Presi-dent and Director, GeoEyesays, "We blend imagery fromdifferent sensors and differentsources to create complex valueadded products. We call this multi-sourceimagery fusion. In December 2010, we bought a companywhich is now called GeoEye Analytics. With this acquisi-tion, we equipped ourselves with predictive geospatialanalytics capabilities. Users want on-demand delivery ofgeospatial information, when they need it, where theyneed it and we have been doing this with our EyeQ plat-form."

With increasing number of sensors in space, there isa glut of EO data. With this, the onus is now shifting on tothe commercial industry to educate the user on the utilityof the data while simultaneously ensuring to keep thecosts of storage low. Dr Kumar Navulur, Director-NextGen Products, DigitalGlobe says, "We launched 8-band imagery. To make the user find value in using thisimagery, we are developing products for bathymetry,

change detection, land use/land cover etc. For the end users the

idea would be to figure outwhat they are doing and

we try to give them theanswers rather than

just throwing pixels.If you use a stan-dard GIS software,you can actuallyingest data auto-matically."

DATA DISTRI-

BUTION/

DELIVERY

MODELS

One significant factorsupporting the distribu-

tion and delivery of data isspeed of processing. Thanks

to 3D gaming, graphic process-ing technology is catching up well.

"We are gaining between 400x - 800x speedsby using graphic cards. The idea is one can either pre-process the data or process it on the fly. With the newtechnology, one can do both," informs Kumar.

Another important model evolving is delivering datawithout the need for users to invest in expensive IT infra-structure. Cloud computing is proving to be a wonderfuland cost-effective solution and companies are working ontechnologies for hosting and disseminating data to theend user very quickly using the cloud. However, Mattpoints out that for the government user, the added confi-dentiality and security of direct uplink and downlink isoften very important. "While cloud offers so many advan-tages in terms of speed, economy and agility, one chal-lenge of increasing importance in Web delivery is securityand we are working together to figure out secure ways foreffective data distribution through cloud," he adds.

Earlier, it used to be weeks before a user could seethe data from the time a satellite collected it. But now,satellite operators like DigitalGlobe are targeting to deliv-er data within minutes after collection. "We developedapplications that can bring imagery on to an iphone or anipad so that mobile users can get data within minutes oran hour after collection," apprises Kumar.


GeoEye blends imagery from differentsensors and different sources to createcomplex value added products. We call thismulti-source imagery fusion

- Matt O’ConnellCEO, President and Director, GeoEye

DATA CONTINUITY

EO data is a valuable resource for global change researchand applications like agriculture, forestry, regional plan-ning and environmental monitoring. Several UN andWorld Bank funded projects seek the continuous provi-sion of EO data for long-term projects. The US' Landsathas the longest record of continuously monitoring thechanges in earth's surface at medium resolution forclose to 40 years now. The Landsat Data Continuity Mis-sion (LDCM) will provide continuity to Landsat datasetwith moderate resolution (15m-100m) data and is sched-uled to be operational in 2013.

The European GMES (Global Monitoring for Environ-ment and Security) is another ambitious initiative sched-uled to be operational from 2014 promising informationcontinuity. However, all such long-term initiatives in EOspace are government driven. Commercial players areunable to make such long term plans feels Geoff Sawyer."The lack of confidence in long term availability of data isone of the barriers to growth in the sector," he opines.But differing with this argument Kumar underscores thatcommercial EO industry is in the business for long term,"We are a commercial business. We can't just say that wewould be around for 4-5 years. You are buying an elec-tronic product and if you don't know whether the compa-ny would be around for the next five years, why would youbuy it?"

The commercial EO industry vouches that it is invest-ing billions of dollars so that customers have assureddata over the long term. GeoEye2 is on track for launch inMarch 2013 and Matt informs that once it is operational,the company will start working on GeoEye3. DigitalGlobetoo has its plans afoot. WorldView 3 is planned for 2014and the company is already thinking about WorldView4while also opening up to options other than electro-opti-cal sensors. "WorldView 3 will serve for about 10 yearsand so we are ensured of continuity till about 2024already," assures Kumar.

Bringing in the concept of 'shared mission' to ensure

data continuity, Matt says, "There ought to be a sharedmission where USA, Europe, India and any other nationbuild a satellite each and that mission should circle theglobe. Each satellite might last for 6-7 years and then itgoes from Americas over to Europe, Middle East, Africaand Asia and then America would come around again. Inthe backdrop of difficult financial situation, collaborationis the way forward."

The last decade of 20th century has seen a number ofsatellite failures. However, in the last 8-10 years, EOsatellite technology has proven itself beyond doubt byremoving all technological hitches and the launch success since 1999/2000 is as high as 99 percent. Withadvanced technology, mature market and improved deliv-ery, companies are lining up next-generation satellites.

GOVERNMENT VS PRIVATE USE

In the 10th year of commercialisation, there are less than10 companies primarily marketing high resolution EOdata directly to end-users and/or through data resellersor value-added services (VAS) providers. A dominantmajority of data produced by commercial EO companiesis consumed by defence agencies and there is a visiblewedge between government and commercial applica-tions. 2010 marked a peak in EO spending and number oflaunches with civil EO spending prominent for leadinggovernments.

Euroconsult estimated the size of the commercial EOdata market to be USD 1.3 billion in 2010 (Figurer 1)which is expected to approach USD 4 billion by 2020. This


Figure 1: Value chain in satellite based commercial EO (estimates in billions of USD for 2010). Courtesy: Euroconsult

DigitalGlobe developed applications thatcan bring imagery on to an iphone or anipad so that mobile users can get datawithin minutes or an hour after collection

- Dr Kumar NavulurDirector-Next Gen Products, DigitalGlobe

is the result of more capable satellites, better groundsystems and networks (data interpretation, disseminationand fusion) and more users' education and incentive. Ofthis, Euroconsult attributes 65% of sales to defence cus-tomers.

The expected number of satellite launches in the nextdecade also indicates the continuity in this trend (Figure 2& Table 1) where the government and military satelliteswill dominate the commercial EO satellites.

Discussing the European situation, Stephen Coulson,Head of Industry Section, Science and ApplicationsDepartment, European Space Research Institute (ESRIN)of European Space Agency (ESA) indicates that the trendis similar in European market as well. A study (2008)commissioned by ESA on 'The State and Health of theEuropean and Canadian EO Service Industry' points outthat the largest customer group for EO services is publicsector operational entities. According to the report,"strong constraints are still reported in accessing newcustomers and this is confirmed by lack of growth in pri-vate sector customers (during 2003-2008)." Differing withthis argument, Adam Keith, Director-Earth Observation,Euroconsult apprises that leading commercial EO opera-tors have had some success in diversifying client basesover the years. For instance, both DigitalGlobe and Geo-Eye saw their revenues pertaining to commercial (includ-

ing non-US government and private industry) customersclimb to 38% and 22%, respectively (Figure 3), Adaminforms. Supporting the argument, Kumar informs, "DigitalGlobe is actively working with Google, Microsoftand other LBS partners. Government is a growth segment but LBS has grown significantly and areengaged with most of the players in the LBS."

Adam also senses an opportunity for commercialplayers in this trend of dominant government spending(for defence and civil government). "There is still highpotential for sales to international governments to sup-port defence applications. Numerous governments haveimage intelligence requirements but high resolutionimaging capacity remains the domain of just a few coun-tries. More short-term revenue gains are likely to comefrom sales to such governments," he opines.

REGULATORY REGIME

Despite significant progress, commercial EO data is stillnot exploited to its fullest potential owing to policy-relat-ed challenges faced by commercial operators. Eachsatellite operator has its own national regulatory regimeand is subject to commercial policies that are often notharmonised with other operators. Achieving commonlicensing and distribution terms that can apply to multi-ple providers has proven complex. The processes andmechanisms required to order data from different satel-lites are not standardised, making it difficult for users tocreate and submit requests that meet their needs.

Paulo Bezerra, Managing Director, MDA GeospatialServices Inc., recommends the establishment of a com-mon framework to address these challenges. Speaking atthe High Level Forum on Global Geospatial InformationManagement (GGIM) under the aegis of United Nations,


Figure 2: Spending (in million USD) at satellite launch date

Figure 3: Government Vs commercial (including non-US government andprivate) revenues in 2010. Courtesy: Euroconsult

No. of satellites 2001-2010 2011-2020

Commercial* 15 40

Government* 85 195

Military 50 70

Total 150 305

Table 1: Expected number of satellite launches in the next decade. Courtesy: Euroconsult

(*) including multiple satellite constellations.

he suggests that the common framework should aim toharmonise the national satellite remote sensing regula-tory regimes; harmonise commercial data policies; stan-dardise data ordering protocols; standardise product for-mats and product delivery protocols.

However to be successful, Paulo opines that theframework requires appropriate representation from gov-ernments, industry and large users to be successful andshould be based on the experience accumulated inefforts such as the Committee on Earth ObservationSatellites (CEOS), Group on Earth Observations (GEO) andthe Global Monitoring for Environment and Security(GMES) programme.

STRATEGIES FOR EMERGING MARKETS

Commercial players are actively pursuing local markets,especially the emerging markets like Russia, China,India, Brazil, Africa, Middle East. In fact, BRIC is of pri-mary interest to most of the commercial earth observa-tion industry. A variety of strategies are being employed tocapture the market. One smarter way for the global play-

ers is working with local partners in all markets, whohave the edge over them in local language, culture andhave the local market intelligence. GeoEye is workingthrough local partners and has a strong set of partner-ships in Europe, Asia and Middle East. Over the years, ithas nurtured strong partnerships and leveraged on indi-vidual strengths. "For instance, we work with a groupcalled East-Dawn in China, a distribution and productioncompany. In Russia, we work with ScanEx, which hasground stations and is also into production and distribu-tion," briefs Matt. Another route companies are taking isby finding promising verticals and customers based ondevelopment parameters and estimating the market sizebefore venturing into a particular country. "We will look

EO satellite manufacturers

The requisite infrastructure forearth observation sector is built/launched by about 30 companies

worldwide. This excludes the govern-ment funded and built satellites.Major players in this segment includeEADS Astrium, Ball Aerospace, ThalesAlenia Space, Lockheed Martin SpaceSystems and Surrey Satellite Technol-ogy Ltd (SSTL). Owing to technologyinnovations in bus and instruments,satellite systems are getting increas-ingly capable with reduced costtrends. National security, technologytransfer and economic concerns areincreasingly prompting countries tohave their own satellite systems driv-ing business for the manufacturers.

In the backdrop of slowing eco-nomic growth, companies are devising

cost-effective solutions and innovativebusiness models. They are expandingbut with caution to stay robust. One ofthe interesting activities in this direc-tion in EO sector is the evolution ofbusiness models so far followed bygeostationary communications satel-lites, where most operators leasetheir transponders on hourly, daily,monthly basis to suit the customers'needs. SSTL has proposed a constel-lation, initially of three EO satellites of1m resolution, and offered that asleased service to make best use of thegeographic distribution offered by theorbiting satellite. Speaking at the 3rdSymposium on Earth ObservationBusiness, Sir Martin Sweeting, Chair-man, SSTL, informs, "This arrange-ment minimises the capital expendi-

ture for those who wish to have thecapacity but not necessarily own thewhole satellite/constellation. We arepleased to sign the first customer whohas leased 100% capacity of the firstthree satellites on the constellation.We look to add more satellites to theconstellation of even sub-metre reso-lution in the due course."

Cary W Ludtke, Vice President andGeneral Manager, Ball Aerospacesays the company is exploring severalcost-effective solutions to meet thedemand and one of them is employingdistributed architectures, especiallywith constellation of earth observationsatellites. This involves a number ofadvantages including the substitutionof complex satellite systems with dis-tributed (different) instruments of

Scaling new heights with tech innovationScaling new heights with tech innovation


Numerous govts have image intelligencerequirements but high resolution imagingcapacity is the domain of a few countries.More short-term revenue gains are likely tocome from sales to such governments

- Adam KeithDirector-EO, Euroconsult

for the market size to be attractive enough to go after andnot try to change. For example, people have chased agri-culture, but at least to me, it appears that there is hardlyany money in agriculture," argues Kumar.

The trend in relaxation in policy environment dealingwith EO data in these countries is also contributing posi-tively to data uptake from commercial players. India hasrecently revised its policy governing remote sensing dataand according to Kumar, "Policies like these will helpmore commercial businesses to come to India. Previouslythere were many restrictions, but now it is easy to dobusiness in India for data over 1 m resolution."

Distributors' takeRegional distributors and resellers too are showing keeninterest in working with global companies. For instance,Japanese Space Imaging Corporation (JSI) is pursuingthe 3C strategy - Change , Challenge and Collaboration.Describing its strategy, Yoichi Kamiyama, CEO and Presi-dent says, "Understanding the changes in the technologyevolution, local market needs and policies, we are identi-

fying and working on the challenges and ably devisingways by collaborating appropriately with global/domesticcompanies, technology partners and governments." JSI isactively seeing public-private partnerships (PPP) as aneffective mode for working towards success.

On the basis of distribution and partner agreementswith global operators, Russian company ScanEx has beendistributing high and very-high resolution imagesacquired by IKONOS, GeyEye-1, QuickBird, WorldView-1/2, KOMPSAT-2, FORMOSAT-2, RADARSAT-2, ALOS andTerraSAR-X satellites. It entered into definitive distribu-tion agreements in 2011 with MDA for RADARSATimagery and with GeoEye for IKONOS imagery. The scopeof these new agreements underscore the internationalcommercial market's increasing demand for high-resolu-tion satellite imagery and services.

PASCO became the first distribution partner ofInfoterra GmbH for the TerraSAR-X radar data productsin 2005. "PASCO has not only secured the exclusive distri-bution rights for the Japanese market as well as a sub-stantial data contingent, but also the opportunity to

small satellite platforms mak-ing use of data fusion andincreases time resolution anddaily coverage depending onthe number of satelliteswithin a constellation. Thisalso enables easy replace-ment of a satellite within aconstellation or formationdue to the relative low costsof a single satellite.

As budgets pinch, it isimperative for companies tolook for affordability whileconsolidating on performance. This isleading to innovation in technology.Companies are investing in improve-ments in diverse fields of technologyincluding optics, mechanics andmaterials, electronics and data pro-cessing, simultaneously bringing busi-ness innovation. Companies like Astri-um (Spot 6 and Spot 7) and LockheedMartin are taking pioneering strides inthis direction. The trend to move tosmaller satellites is well supported by

these technology improvements.These trends are visible in opticalspace borne systems as well asmicrowave systems like SAR, redefin-ing the economics of space andincreasing the tempo of spaceexploitation. Manufacturers are alsoeying low earth orbits as a cheaperoption to launch EO satellites.Europe's Vega and India's workhorsePSLV are excellent examples in thiscategory. At the component level,global supply chain is key to compa-

nies' operations. Says EdIrvin, Vice President Inter-national of Lockheed MartinSpace Systems, "We are

working closely with ourglobal supply chain tomaximise the affordabilityand ensure mission suc-cess. To ensure businessin the long run, we areworking with universities.Our customers are lookingfor evolutionary role undera constrained financial

environment. So, we are taking a dis-ciplined approach in leveraging part-nerships and concentrating on beingrelevant through innovation and per-formance." Collaboration is anotherbuzzword in the satellite manufactur-ing industry. Experts opine that in thenext 5-10 years the industry wouldwitness lot more international collab-orations as a means to cut costs andoptimise data utilisation by standardi-sation of data obtained.


receive TerraSAR-X data directly from the satellite sincelate 2006 as a Direct Access Partner (DAP). PASCO alsohas nonexclusive data distribution rights globally casewise," informs Youichi Sugimoto, CEO & COO of PASCOCorporation. Today, PASCO distributes imagery of 14commercial EO satellites.

MARKETING AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

As countries are moving to knowledge-based economies,a rapidly growing market for satellite imagery and relatedinformation analyses and value added products is emerg-ing worldwide. However, there is a clear gap in exchangebetween space agencies, NMOs and commercial players.This evidently is putting a limitation on the usability ofhigh resolution imagery and its reach and affordability.UN-GGIM is a recent initiative to bridge thisgap. One might also want to ponder over thelimited success of commercial EO operatorsto make satellite imagery a part of day-to-day life despite brilliant 'virtualearth' initiatives by companies likeGoogle and Microsoft.

With new and innovative imageryproducts, the onus is now shifting tocommercial operators to educatethe customers on the utility of theirimagery beyond traditional applica-tions. Companies are nurtur-ing prospec-tive verticalslike LBS butbeyond that,efforts in creat-ing awarenessand developing the market are farand few. This can be viewed as a challenge associatedwith a fledgling industry.

Indicating the way forward, DigitalGlobe says that theability of satellite operators to connect allows them tomove the industry to the next phase. Customers are look-

ing for value out of data and information analysis and theecosystem the industry needs to create with partners isone that can create value to the customers.

Reposing faith in the dynamism of the sector, GeoffSawyer underscores that this dynamism is the strength ofthe sector - encouraging and making it possible for newcompanies to find finance to develop their own business-es, to find their own business models rather than pre-scribing themselves to any one business model to moveforward. There are large companies that are ready tosupport, to work with, or to buy out, smaller companies,and to give an exit to a business plan.

IMPACT OF ECONOMIC SCENARIO

Today, commercial satellite EO industry is primarily driven by government defence and intelligence agencies.Most of these agencies have put in money to support thebirth of commercial satellite companies. For instancecompanies like Geoeye and Astrium were funded by gov-ernments. DigitalGlobe started as a true private companywithout any funding from the US government, but endedup looking at defence as its prime market. GeoEye and

DigitalGlobe are very much controlled by US DOD andthe same has been providing indirect leadership and

direction. The arrangement served very well for bothsides until the going was good. 2010 saw NGA

awarding contracts worth USD 7.3 billion toGeoEye and DigitalGlobe under itsEnhanced View programme, promising a great future to the commercial EO

industry. However, the unsettling economic

environment in 2011 brought in severalchanges in the outlook of the patron

government organisations and consequentlythe commercial players. NGA

announced budget cuts to the proposedEnhanced View programme raising

doubts and concerns over the sustain-ability of the involved commercial players. These issues relate primarily to the US oper-

ators; operators elsewhere are perhaps less influencedby one single customer, in this case the NGA. Touchingon this issue, Adam Keith says, "If theoretically the USgovernment changed its policy to support the commercialindustry, and procurement from the NGA was significant-ly reduced, then yes this would clearly impact the US

PASCO has secured the exclusivedistribution rights for Japan and also theopportunity to receive TerraSAR-X datadirectly from the satellite since late 2006as a Direct Access Partner

- Youichi SugimotoCEO & COO, PASCO Corporation


operators and the sizing of the com-mercial data market as a whole.However, the commercial sectorexisted before this support and itwould still do so if it stopped. Themarket for commercial data wouldsurely be reduced, but it should berecalled that the main global growthdrivers last year, and moving forwardare high-resolution commercial datasale to international governmentsand the emerging LBS market.Therefore long-term prospects wouldstill remain positive."

Cognizant of the implications ofeconomic volatility, commercial EOoperators are devising ways to staybuoyant. Matt O'Connell feels theenvironment will augur more andmore sharing of imagery and sharingof revenue a la cellphone roamingcharges. The industry is seeing aperiod of economic uncertainty thatmight slow it down for a year butMatt feels it is but inevitable that theindustry will continue to growbecause use of imagery makes everydecision maker more efficient.

CONCLUSION

By design satellite remote sensinghas been more a national pride thana business and commercial playersare unable to get out of the govern-ment mindset yet. The sector contin-ues to largely remain state controlledand suffers from lack of commitmentfrom governments to support it withenabling policies. However, theindustry is quite optimistic over itsprospects as it starts reaching out tonew markets with latest imageryproducts, gets innovative in tryingfinancial times and starts educatingand training the customers.

Bhanu RekhaExecutive Editor, [email protected]

Publisher’s view...

There are several issues ofconcern with regard to satel-lite-based commercial earth

observation industry today. Somecommercial EO data companieshave traditionally been conservativeand have always looked at defenceand civil governments as the majormarkets to cater to. At the sametime, few enterprising EO compa-nies have made efforts to stimulatecommercial applications, but theirefforts may at best be termed half-hearted.

The slowing economic situationand the consequent budget cutshave drastically reduced the prom-ised EO spending in defence sector.This has put a question mark overthe financial viability of commercialEO companies which have bankedon defence contracts for long. Theirstock prices have plummeted, rob-bing investors' confidence andleaving the future of the industry injeopardy. This doesn't make goodbusiness sense nor in any waysecures the business needs of pro-fessionals who rely on earth obser-vation data. It also leaves the futureof many existing long-term projectsin a limbo and reduces the confi-dence of commercial users.

Not being exposed to hostileeconomic environment and marketdriven realities so far, commercialEO companies may find it challeng-ing to explore new avenues andopportunities. One way out could bethat defence agencies that havesignificant control over these com-panies can motivate security giantslike Lockheed Martin to purchasethese companies and continue toprovide them satellite imagery. Butsuch acquisitions may make the EOcompanies captive who may stopnurturing the commercial utility of

EO data. Poor prospects for com-mercial market may lead to entrybarriers and denial of competitionand alternative solutions for users,reducing further investments andinnovation in the industry.

Second situation could bewherein geospatial majors likeTrimble, Hexagon and probably Esrimay like to invest in these compa-nies. This could augur well for thegeospatial ecosystem as thesecompanies are market driven,understand the value of imageryand can make significant contribu-tion to drive EO industry and lever-age on individual strengths toexplore the commercial utility. Thesatellite based commercial EOindustry may like to explore severalother alternatives like entering intostrategic partnerships with majorcompanies catering to mainstreameconomic industries includingenergy, exploration, insurance, real estate, architecture and construction, telecommunicationsand navigation to develop into arobust, viable and market-drivenindustry.

Having said this, it is appropri-ate to acknowledge that the com-mercial EO data has tremendousprospect in the long run and itstrue value as a tool to manageglobal resources remains to beharnessed. The commercial EOindustry could be appropriatelypositioned to contribute in manag-ing the same more effectively andappropriately. The commercial EOindustry may be going through achallenging time at the moment,but it has adequate stake holdingand potential in evolving into a self-stimulating, market-drivenbusiness story.

- Sanjay Kumar

Act to be a viable market forceAct to be a viable market force



TECHNOLOGY TRENDS

Keeping an eye on t h

The technology of earth observation has seenmany changes over the past few years with fourmajor trends emerging. The first is the govern-

ment-funded missions for earth observation, using avariety of sensors on large satellites which addressmapping as well as scientific studies. The news, how-ever, is dominated by the second trend consisting ofcommercial imaging satellites with sub-metre spatialresolution for land applications. The third is a shiftaway from big multi-sensor satellites towards smallsingle-function satellites. The fourth trend is to usesmall satellites in constellations and swarms. Fur-thermore, these trends tend to overlap with each oth-er. RapidEye is a commercial constellation of smallsatellites while Disaster Monitoring Constellation(DMC) is government owned but operated by DMCii.

SATELLITE TRENDS

Large earth observation satellites are being supportedby government agencies. India has its IRS series and isperhaps the only country to have such a large commit-ment to continuing government-funded earth observa-tion satellites and application programmes. Apart fromits workhorses, INSAT, RESOURCESAT and CARTOSAT,the Indian programme also involves the piggybacklaunching of small satellites from different countriesand more recently nanosatellites like SRMSat and Jugnufrom educational institutions. Joint programmes includeMegha-Tropiques and SARAL, in collaboration withCNES, France.

The recently launched Pleiades 1A is the first of anew generation satellites operated by Astrium Services.Pleiades 1A will be followed between 2012 and 2014 bySPOT 6, its twin Pleiades 1B and finally SPOT 7. Builtaround similar architecture and phased in the sameorbit, the constellation of four satellites will ensure bet-ter responsiveness and availability of 50 cm to 2 m prod-ucts through to 2023. Pleiades is a component of theORFEO programme in which Italy is a partner with itsCOSMO-Skymed series of satellites.

The US Landsat programme has ended with Landsat7. NASA has launched the new millennium programmefor next generation spacecraft. The first was EO-1,which, among other mission goals, was flown in constel-lation mode with Landsat 7. EO-1 mission has ended andthe NMP has no other satellites planned. The LandsatData Continuity Mission (LDCM is expected to belaunched in late 2012 and will carry two sensors, theoperational land imager, OLI and the thermal infraredsensor, TIRS. NASA is also concentrating on their follow-


Image: GeoEye 2 Courtesy: Lockheed Martin

t he planet

With technology advancementsin sensors, payload weights and

data processing, earth observationaas a domain is transforming rapidly.

And with its application expandingacross the domains, the futture

looks replete with opportunities.Here’s an exhaustive analysis

of the technology trends...

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on to the EOS missions, the earth systematic missions(ESM) programme which will continue to advance under-standing of the climate system and climate change. TheESM is a three-tiered programme. Apart from this, thereare joint missions with NOAA for weather and climatestudies.

Europe has two major programmes, GMES and theLiving Planet. The satellites are one off specific missionoriented satellites which form parts of the total pro-gramme. The Living Planet contains science and researchelements which include the earth explorer missions andan earth watch element, which is designed to facilitate thedelivery of earth observation data for use in operationalservices. Global monitoring for environment and security,GMES includes five sentinel satellites, each unique in itsmission. Meteosat third generation satellites, in collabo-ration with EUMETSAT, will provide continuity of theMeteosat series of meteorological satellites.

José Achache, Director, Group on Earth Observations(GEO) Secretariat points out that "host payloads are a fan-tastic opportunity. It may be very difficult to handlebecause space agencies do not like that. They want tobuild their own satellites and they want to go for cuttingedge technology and new developments. But this is anopportunity; it is going to be a new trend". Megha-Tropiques is in fact an Indian bus with hosted payloadsfrom India and France. Another interesting view of JoséAchache is that "Imagery from GEO will be interesting as

well because it provides a revisit time which is of the otherminutes that gives an entirely different perspective on anumber of highly viable processes". Matthew O'Connellfeels that multiple satellite launches is also a good cost-cutting idea and points out that RapidEye constellationwas launched this way.

While the large satellites will continue to be launched,there is a trend towards smaller single mission satellites.At the 8th IAA Symposium on Small Satellites for EarthObservation held in April 2011 in Berlin, Germany, some ofthe key findings were summarised by Sir Martin Sweeting,Executive Chairman SSTL. In the next 5 to 10 years therewill be more constellations of earth observation satelliteslike RapidEye. Satellites will get fractionated, i.e. eachsatellite will form a functional part of a total system. Theremay be separate satellites for different functions likeimaging, processing, transmission, etc. These could bethrough sparse aperture arrays, reconfigurable systems,in orbit assembly of large structures and free-flyingswarms. Such satellites create a greater opportunity forparticipation in space activities by smaller countries asthe examples of NigeriaSat and SumbandilaSat haveshown. The disaster management constellation is anexample of multi-nation cooperation. The challenges areregular, timely and economical launches and a method ofremoval of space debris that pose a serious risk to smallsatellites. Matthew O'Connell, on the other hand, feelsthat small, single-sensor satellite constellations likeRapidEye may be a great idea for coverage and such satel-lite/sensor combinations will grow but high resolutionprecision sensors will always be needed by users.

The satellites are also shrinking in size. Small satel-lites or minisatellites fall in the range of 100 to 500 kg inweight. Satellites in the range of 10-100 kg are calledmicrosatellites; one to 10 kg satellites are callednanosatellites and 100 gm to one kg are called picosatel-lites. While mini and micro satellites are now operational,nano and pico satellites are research areas. Mini and


SanFrancisco as seen by Pleiades 1A Courtesy: http://smsc.cnes.fr

Host payloads are a fantastic opportunity.It may be difficult to handle as spaceagencies do not like that. They want tobuild their own satellites and go forcutting edge technology. But this is anopportunity; it is going to be a new trend

- Jose Achache, Director GEO Secretariat

micro satellites operate in constellations. They are con-trolled from the ground. Nano and pico satellites will formparts of satellite swarms which are autonomous in theircontrol and may communicate through a 'master' satellitewhich could be a mini or micro satellite.

SENSORS

There are a plethora of sensors but considering the imag-ing sensors alone there are three major ones. The first arethe tried and tested CCD multispectral and panchromaticimaging sensors. Operational sensors have alreadyreached 40 cm spatial resolution and this could be nearthe limit from space borne optical sensors, according toMartin Sweeting. Matthew O'Connell of GeoEye has thesame view. The next generation GeoEye-2 will have a res-olution of 0.33m. This could be stretched to 0.25m butbeyond this it would call for significant design change.Kumar Navulur, Director, Next Gen Products, DigitalGlobefeels that design and orbit height, which has a significanteffect on satellite life, will decide the resolution limit.

According to him, 0.25m is realisable with the currenttechnology. He also sees the number of bands increasingfrom four to 20 and beyond, which falls in the definition ofhyperspectral sensors. The commercial WorldView 2satellite of DigitalGlobe has an eight- band sensor. Sen-tinel 2 has a MSI sensor with 13 bands. NASA's OLI andTIRS data on board LDCM will provide 15m panchromatic

and ten-band multispectral data, five 30m resolutionin the optical range, three 30m resolution in

the near IR and two 100m resolutionin the thermal IR ranges.

Matthew O'Connell,on the other

hand,

feels that more bands may only be of academic interest. Talking of radiometric resolution, Kumar Navulur says

that 11 to 12 bit resolution is essential and will increase toabout 16 bits but not beyond. Such resolution will compareto aerial sensors but satellite sensors will never replaceaerial sensors.

Another area is stereo coverage, which is achieved byfore and aft looking cameras or by using very agile satel-lites that can be repositioned to image areas at differentangles to create stereo pairs. Agile satellites can alsoimage small areas and also sweep large areas. Extremeoblique views, up to 40 to 50 degrees off nadir, are alsogaining ground in some applications.

Hypespectral sensors form the second group of sen-sors. Some are already available on several satellites likeEO1 and Aster and will be available on most of the futureimaging satellites. The third group of sensors are the syn-thetic aperture radar, SAR. All major government backedprogrammes have the SAR as a major component.

There are several synthetic aperture radar satellites inorbit and more on the way. Two of these are ISRO's RISAT-1 and ESA's Sentinel-1. RISAT (Radar Imaging Satellite)-1is one of a series of Indian radar imaging reconnaissancesatellites being built by ISRO to provide all-weather sur-veillance using synthetic aperture radars. The syntheticaperture radar onboard RISAT will have the ability toacquire data at C-band in different modes of polarisation,incidence angle and resolution. The Sentinel-1 missionhas a C-band SAR instrument which provides three radarimaging modes with dual polarisation capability (HH-HV,VV-VH).

Other SensorsWeather, environmental and other scientific satelliteshave a wide range of sensors. They include thermal scan-

ners, optical and microwave radiometers, scatterome-ters and altimeters. Typical satellites are Sen-

tinel 4 and 5 from ESA and NPOESSfrom NASA. While at the outset

these might look likescientific mis-

sions of

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little use to practical resources management there arealso surprises. José Achache points to the outcomes ofthe GRACE mission as an example. GRACE or gravityrecovery and climate experiment was intended to primari-ly measure the earth's gravity field and its time variabilitywith unprecedented accuracy, but it could also be used forlooking at changing of the water table at small scale.Researchers using GRACE data found that there is analarming depletion of groundwater in north-west India,largely comprising of Punjab and Haryana - a fact well known but not its extent, measure and potential fordamage.

DATA PROCESSING

Earth observation has become an important source ofdata but it requires processing like geo-referencing andortho-rectification before they can be integrated into a GISdatabase. Such pre-processing is largely done automati-cally today, the only exception being the generation of trueortho-imagery. GIS-ready ortho-imagery is availablewhich typically provides a ninety percent circle of error(CE90%) of 4.8m. It does not come cheap and may costanywhere up to USD 90 per sq km. GIS-ready imagery isavailable from many sources like TerraLook, a joint projectof the USGS and the NASA jet propulsion laboratory (JPL).


Prior to 2009, no commercially availablesatellite system was able to provide veryhigh temporal resolution with consistentradiometry at a competitive price. Toaddress this issue, the RapidEye opticalsatellite system, which consisted of fiveidentical satellites, was developed andlaunched. In the system's design phase, theagricultural industry was identified to havethe highest market potential for improvedearth observation (EO) imagery and relatedservices. Consequently, the system wasdesigned to meet the following parameters:

» Inclusion of a special red-edge-bandfor vegetation analysis in addition to 4more radiometric bands for blue,green, red and near-infrared.

» A high radiometric resolution of 12bit for improved classification results.

» A native ground sampling distance of6.5m, orthorectified to 5m pixel size forall five spectral bands.

» A very large imaging capacity of up to4.2 million sq km per day.

» Automated image processing for rap-id delivery and quick turnaround within24 to 48 hours.

The biggest challenge for any optical satel-lite system is the desired minimal cloudcoverage over an area of interest at anygiven time and the best way to overcomethis principal problem is to increase revisittimes, which in turn increase the opportuni-ty to capture favourable weather conditions.The system, with five identical satellites anda wide swath width of 77 km, has five times

more opportunity than a single satellite ofthe same specification. The satellites canalso be pointed up to 20 degrees off-nadir.However, with more opportunities for nadirimaging, this lessens any terrain-inducedgeometric distortions in mountainous areas.

However, the operation of a constellation offive identical satellites does not differ muchfrom the operation of a single satellite, asthese satellites too require just one ground

station contact per 90-minute orbit. In dailycontacts with the control centre in Bran-denburg, Germany, the satellites exchangetechnical status information, which is regis-tered and analysed automatically. Every 30to 90 days, each satellite must be adjustedback to its initial altitude by firing theonboard rocket engines. While the originaldesign for the constellation was sevenyears, the onboard fuel tanks actually haveenough capacity to maintain the 630 kmaltitude until 2017 or even longer.

Imaging the earth with a fleet of five satel-lites requires additional effort in relation tosensor calibration. For the end user, thequality of an image from one satellite mustbe equal in quality to imagery from any ofthe other four. In order to maintain andguarantee identical imaging parameters,the system uses a number of calibrationsites located in different parts of the world.These are imaged by all satellites regularlyand the collected data is used for the cal-culation of calibration parameters. Suchprocedures ensure that the satellites arecalibrated relatively to each other, while thespectral information itself is not distorted.

In comparison to single satellites, there aresome advantages for constellations of mul-tiple identical satellites like better imagingperformance, resulting in fast coverage oflarge areas, especially important for cloudyareas and the system redundancy. The sys-tem is designed to counter emergenciesand the programme can be fulfilled even ifa satellite ceases to function.

Dr. Rene Griesbach, RapidEye Germany

Stefan OeldenbergerGerman GeoConsultants Group, Tunisia & Libya

Satellite constellations: Covering serious ground

The RapidEye constellation of satellites

COLLECT SHARE DELIVER

1/9/2011/9/201


There are many private companies that canproduce customised datasets as per clientneeds including integration with aerial dataand other sources.

It would make sense to have criticalfeatures pre-extracted like transportationand drainage since it is only based on suchfeatures that one can query a GIS. At themoment image classification, changedetection and feature recognition are pos-sible through image processing tools. Thetechnology is looking at issues like 2D and3D object extraction, including buildingreconstruction and 3D city modelling.Techniques being addressed are surface modelling andreconstruction, surveillance and change detection, learn-ing and statistical methods for object extraction, automat-ed sensor orientation and data fusion including informa-tion from GIS, BIM or CAD.

SERVICES

High resolution data is also high volume data. Most datausers are aware of the hassles of storing petabytes ofdata. Even though modern data storage media haveextremely high capacities but the data deluge can stilloverpower such capacities. Further, data once usedbecomes a dead investment. Data as a service is a modelthat is being explored to overcome such a situation. WhileGoogle showed the way initially, there are a number ofsuch data providers like Bing and also very comprehensivesources which enable multiple dataset collection andanalysis like Eye on Earth by European EnvironmentAGency (EEA) and World Wind by NASA. India has its Bhu-van, which is touted as India's reply to Google. China toohas its own Google type service.

Matthew O'Connell wants to make it easy for non-technical people to access imagery, to manage imageryand share imagery and for this GeoEye has developed aplatform called EyeQ. That then ties into another aspect ofWeb distribution which is the Cloud. In fact, GeoEye isusing the Cloud for an NGA initiated programme called therapid dissemination of online geospatial information.Every major military effort and every major disaster reliefis a coalition effort and imagery has to be shared rapidly.That requires two things, the imagery has to be unclassi-fied and there must be effective and efficient Web distribu-tion so that disaster relief, whether it is in Haiti or in

Japan, can get the imagery through theWeb and they have to be able to select onlythe imagery that they need. One thing thatGeoEye focussed on in the design of theirservice was letting people chip out just theimage they needed. So if they want to seethe Fukushima nuclear plant, they neednot have to download too much of databecause then the imagery is very large andit is hard to transmit.

DigitalGlobe solves the problem ofdata volume in three ways. First, scaling isused to reduce data volume by nearly 98percent. Secondly, very fast processors

are used to do the pre-processing on the fly and thirdly,data is stored on the Cloud. This enables users to get datawithin hours of acquisition on any device. There is also amove to extract layers like bathymetry, land cover, changedetection and providing the same as GIS-ready imagery.

While these are great initiatives, it needs to be pointedout that satellite data as a service for real-time data ornear-real time data is yet to be established. Real-time ornear real-time high or medium data, which is needed toaddress disasters, requires the setting up of an opera-tional system. The DMC constellation is one approach toaddress this need. Ultimately, a system which directlydownloads imagery to the end user will be required. Thisexists for meteorologist and oceanographers but is not yetdeveloped for land based applications.

CONCLUSION

The world of earth observation is dynamic and fast chang-ing. Technology requires funds and end users. The utilityof space- based earth observation has been provedbeyond doubt but without proper downstream use of theinformation, the technology will remain underutilised. Private players have cutting edge technologies at theircommand which they have used to address niche marketsbut have had problems in this market. The benefits ofearth observation often cannot always be valued in mone-tary terms. Take for example the study on groundwaterdepletion quoted earlier using data from a governmentsponsored satellite. It will be impossible to monetise thisinformation but it will be foolhardy to ignore it because itcannot be monetised.

Prof. Arup DasguptaManaging Editor, [email protected]

High resolution data isalso high volume data.Most data users are

aware of the hassles ofstoring petabytes of data.Even though modern data

storage media haveextremely high capacitiesbut the data deluge can

still overpower suchcapacities


What are the offerings of GeoEye atpresent and what else is in thepipeline?

We have GeoEye 1 that was

launched in 2008 and GeoEye 2,

which is on track for launch in March

2013. We are spending over a billion

dollars between GeoEye 1 and 2 so

that our customers can see an

assured source of data over the long

term. GeoEye 2 will start selling

imagery in the fall of 2013 and once it

is up and operating, we will start

working on GeoEye 3. GeoEye 1 cap-

tures imagery at 0.41 metre resolu-

tion, which is delivered to the US gov-

ernment. Imagery for the public is

available at 0.5 metres because in

the US, we cannot sell imagery that

has resolution higher than 0.5

metres to anyone other than the gov-

ernment. While the policy might be

changed going forward, it may not

necessarily be a near

term change. It is a

relevant point of dis-

cussion because the

next satellite we are

building for the US

government, the Geo-

Eye 2, will have the

ability to capture

imagery at 0.33

meters.

However, the issue

is whether we would be able to sell

imagery to others or at what point

will the US revisits the limits. I think

what US does in this regard will be

guided by what is going on in the for-

eign market. For instance, if other

nations are pushing for higher reso-

lutions then the US will also do that.

Tell us about the changing userneeds and GeoEye's strategy tocater to those needs?

We have said for years that the

industry has to evolve beyond simply

gathering pixels. Our biggest invest-

ments are gathering more pixels and

having higher resolution and higher

accuracy. GeoEye has been doing val-

ue added production for the US gov-

ernment in St. Louis since 1987 and

is one of the few satellite operators

who blend imagery from different

sensors and different sources to cre-

ate complex, value added products.

The ability to create imagery from

various sources will gain importance

as you get additional

satellites as it is more

important to focus on

what the imagery tells

you than simply look-

ing at the picture for

what you see. We call

that multi-source pro-

duction or imagery

fusion. In December

2010, we bought a

company called

SPADAC, which was a leader in pre-

dictive geospatial analytics, and

renamed it to GeoEye Analytics. Pre-

dictive geospatial analytics has a lot

of utility as it can help predict a

future scenario by looking at certain

characteristics of a present situation.

Thus, it can help various agencies

allocate their scarce resources in an

efficient way. The ability to extract

more information from the pixel will

always be useful to your clients. The

director of NGA said that she wanted

on demand delivery of geospatial

information to people and we have

been doing this with our EyeQ plat-

form. She also said that we need to

get information out of the pixel, and

that is exactly what we are doing with

the analytics effort. The industry is

going to evolve this way and there

will be many more sensors soon.

While that may increase the competi-

tion, it will also increase the supply of

imagery and thus help produce more

value added products.

Is the change in user needs bringinga change in the distribution anddelivery of imagery?

The first thing that comes to our

mind when we see the increased

amount of satellite data is how to

make it easily accessible for all. A

major revolution in the music indus-

try is the iPod and one of the reasons

it became a revolution is its ease of

use. Likewise, we want to make it

easier for non-technical people to

access, manage and share imagery

and that is what we have been doing

Extracting information

from imagery is the future

We are spendingover a billion

dollars betweenGeoEye 1 and 2 sothat our customerscan see an assuuredsource of data over

the long term

INTERVIEW

Extracting information

from imagery is the future

with our EyeQ platform. That then

ties into another aspect of web distri-

bution, which is the cloud. We often

use business applications where

companies do not store information

themselves but there is another com-

pany that hosts and manages that

information. We are doing that for the

US government under a very suc-

cessful programme called the Rapid

Dissemination of Online Geospatial

Information. Every major military

activity and every major disaster

relief is a coalition effort where

imagery needs to be shared rapidly.

In order to do that, the imagery has

to be unclassified and one should

have effective and efficient web dis-

tribution so that disaster relief,

whether it is in Haiti or in Japan, can

get the imagery through the web.

Another thing that we focussed on

while designing this service was giv-

ing people the ability to chip out just

the image that they needed. For

example, if they want to see the

Fukushima nuclear plant, we have

to make sure that they are not

seeing too much of Japan because

imagery is very dense and it is hard

to transmit.

One of the challenges in web

delivery, whether it is for a govern-

ment or commercial entity, is to

ensure adequate security. People, for

commercial or governmental rea-

sons, do not want other people to

know what tasking they are request-

ing or what pictures they want taken.

They do not want others to see the

imagery that comes down. Working

through the cloud has a lot of advan-

tages in terms of speed, economy

and agility. However, the one dis-

advantage that it brings is that

one really needs to work on

the security aspect. Thus,

we will have to work together to fig-

ure out security for effective data dis-

tribution through the cloud.

GeoEye has been working withregional partners for distributingimagery. What is new on this front?

We have always thought that

it is smarter to work

through local partners in

all markets. We have

strong partners in

Europe, Asia and

Middle East. We

do not try to go

into the market

and compete with

them because

they speak the

local language,

know the local

culture and have

market intelli-

gence. We are fol-

lowing the same

route in emerging

markets and have

developed GeoEye's

market over the past

few years in China. In

China, we work with a

group called East-Dawn,

which is a distribution and

production company. We

see signs in India that it is

beginning to

think about

brin-

ing

policy change. In Russia, we work

with ScanEx, which has ground sta-

tions, production and distribution

facilities. Russian market has been

expanding and so is ScanEx. If you


Matt O'ConnellCEO, President and Director, GeoEye

look at the global

economic situation,

the most promising

areas for growth are

the developing coun-

tries because the

more developed

countries in Europe

and America are

challenged by the

financial situation.

We do a lot of pro-

duction in India. One

of our most success-

ful products, the air-

port 3D model, is

being increasingly

produced in India.

Now, we do less and

less of that work in

Denver, Colorado.

While the Indian mar-

ket is opening up, the

Latin American mar-

ket too shows a lot of

promise. It is a big market and it is

somewhat fragmented, but I think

that should develop with time. In each

case, we prefer working through a

local reseller because the reseller

knows the culture, knows the buyer

and thus it is not worth us investing in

setting up an office there.

We have groups like GEOSS, whoare trying to act as linkages betweenusers and providers. What shoulldbe the role of such organisations?

We should try to design an effec-

tive financial model so that there

would be sharing of the benefits of

job creation, sharing of information

and at the same time sharing of the

economic burden because these

things are expensive. I know that

GEOSS and other groups have worked

at trying to get people to cooperate

but it is awfully hard because each

nation has its own budget.

Do you think such groups should beformed that the regional level getsinvolved?

I do not know what the most effec-

tive route would be, especially given

the fact that everybody is watching

their budgets carefully these days. I

think it has to be more on a global

than regional level. Every nation has

to step back and think about what it

can afford and what does it really

need. We will have to plan for the long

term and not just do it for one mis-

sion. For example, we can set a target

for land coverage imagery for the

next 20 years and so on. These two

types of information are of such gen-

eral application that nations would

not feel such proprietary about them

as they would about

information that could

be used for defence or

intelligence purposes.

Given that every-body is watchingtheir budgets, whatare the kinds ofbusiness modelsthat are evoolving insatellite-based com-mercial EO industry?

People have tradi-

tionally depended on

governments for what

we call anchor ten-

ants, where the gov-

ernment puts in a big

order that helps

somebody build a big

satellite and then they

sell the excess time. I

think there will be

more and more sharing

of imagery and sharing of revenue.

The analogy I have often used is cell

phone roaming charges where a

number of companies are involved in

sharing the revenue. I think that pric-

ing will become more complicated

but it will also become more reward-

ing because if we expand the market

and make our imagery available to

the users at large then the market

will continue to grow. We are seeing a

period of economic uncertainty that

might slow us down for a year but it is

inevitable that this industry will con-

tinue to grow, because it makes every

decision maker more efficient. Every

decision maker using geospatial

information can make more informed

decisions. For the next year or two it

maybe a little cloudy but then the

clouds will clear and the growth will

continue.


GeoEye image showing extensive flooding in Wat Tum village, Thailand

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As spin-off of the surveillance technology used bydefence establishments around the world,satellite-based earth observation (EO) has come

a long way. Among the very first 'civilian' efforts man-dated exclusively for EO was LandSat 1, formerly theEarth Resources Technology Satellite 1 (ERTS 1). Sincethe early 1970s, data from this satellite and itsyounger and better siblings is regarded as havingserved the longest span of consistently acquired visualrecords of our planetary surface. Efforts of a similarkind have also been successfully carried out by the IRS(Indian remote sensing satellites) series, albeit sincethe late 1980.

The question of whether technology is driving theapplications or is it the other way round, has been mulled

over in numerous debate circles. So what do the technol-ogy providers have to say? Kumar Navulur, Director, NextGen Products, DigitalGlobe says, "For the last 30 years, itwas technology feeding the application but the trend isreversing. Technology is still leading by a fraction but nowwe are seeing a lot more applications asking for specificspectral bands."

The availability of EO data in hard copy as well as digi-tal formats has (according to some) resulted in a plethoraof applications. Given the easy and free availability oftemporal data, a whole lot of activities like analysing theprocess of change detection and monitoring of earth'ssurface have become 'doable' by anyone with a laptop.The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and its GlobalEarth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) pro-


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gramme, with their mandate on EO, have caused a para-digm change in the way a common man understands andappreciates the benefits of EO. This article examinessome of the key applications of EO data.

CONVENTIONAL APPLICATIONS

Disaster management and mitigationAs natural disasters know no bounds, the need for globalcoordination of information systems to address the entirecycle of disaster management and mitigation (DMM) isnecessary. EO data, conventionally supplying the post dis-aster visuals, have been used very effectively in disasterassessment. Anil Kumar Sinha, Vice Chairman, BiharState Disaster Management Authority, India, says, "At a

global level, there is a very goodunderstanding of EO technology andalso good policy frameworks. Coun-tries too are committed. What isneeded is that the informationderived from the analysis of EO sys-tems reaches the actual workers onthe ground." Today, EO data is sup-plemented by direct linkages to livedata including global earthquakemonitoring, ocean wave height moni-toring, volcanic eruption, precipita-tion and snow and wind speed moni-toring - leading to effective earlywarning systems.

EnergyThe exploration of oil and gas, theirextraction and production; electricitygeneration, transport and distribu-tion, form only a part of the activitiesof the energy sector. The sectorencompasses not only non-renew-able resources, but also renewableresources such as solar, wind, bio-mass, and hydropower. The energyindustry is heavily dependent on EOdata. For example, weather data canform useful estimates for electricitysupply and demand. EO data isimportant in the exploration, extrac-tion and transport of the world's oil

and gas reserves, several of which are located in remoteand hostile territories. The data can also be used to buildglobal resource maps for planning renewable energyprojects.

Renewable energy systems have benefitted from EOdata in not only their optimisation, but also in their inte-gration with traditional energy supply systems. Whilerenewable energy sources are environmentally a saferoption than fossil fuels, they are highly susceptible toenvironmental changes, with their availability dependinglargely on the prevailing local weather conditions. Dataon cloud cover and solar irradiance, along with windspeeds and directions, combined with environmentalparameters such as land elevation and land cover, arevital elements in planning for the location and operation


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of renewable energy installations.

ClimateWhile the traditional meansof data collection on landmay give an indication ofclimate change at alocal scale, it is onlythe amalgamation ofsuch data from alarge number ofareas over a largetime span, or theuse of EO data on aglobal scale, that cantruly give an indicationof how the world's cli-mate is responding tohuman expansion. Forexample, EO data makes itpossible to track global vegeta-tion trends over several years,examining its response to changing cli-mate and also the impact that the increasing ordecreasing vegetation cover has on climate.

Newer applications of EO data include studying sea-surface temperatures in an attempt to correlate risingglobal temperatures and hurricane occurrences. TheEuropean Space Agency (ESA), through its satelliteEnvisat, is obtaining high accuracy data on sea surfacetemperatures, helping in prediction of not only the occur-rence of a hurricane, but also its magnitude and intensity.Another important EO application is the tracking of forestfires, either natural, or man made through slash andburn agriculture or negligence. Of immediate interest inviewing the effects of global climate change is the meas-urement of the rate of loss of ice sheets. ESA's CryoSatmission is providing researchers with precise data on icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

Water That the world's fresh water reserves are slowly butsurely depleting, has been proven by ground observationsas well as EO data for gravity measurements. At regionaland local levels, watershed and rainwater conservationpractices have been drawing heavily on observations fromEO satellites for fine tuning the water conservation prac-

tices which depend on terrain condi-tions, apart from the climatic

zones.For example, the Asian

Water Cycle Initiative(AWCI), apart from utilis-

ing meteorologicaldatasets, also utilisesEO data for watershedcharacterisation andprioritisation.Crispino Lobo, Execu-tive Director, Water-shed Organisation

Trust (WOTR), Indiasays, "Today, it is a

common practice toincorporate EO data in a

GIS and the utility will fur-ther improve if sub-metre spa-

tial resolution is made available.This is because water resource man-

agement is a people and community-cen-tric activity where EO data becomes just one data

input. But it needs effective integration with GPS alongwith inputs from the local community. Any applicationdeveloped for water management also needs to have a'people’ component."

WeatherThe national meteorological departments around theworld function more or less as standalone units, issuingshort, medium and long term weather forecasts. The util-isation of EO data from meteorological satellites is proba-bly the earliest usage of such form of data. Today, EOdata is being utilised to "close critical gaps in meteoro-logical and related ocean observations and enhanceobservational and information capabilities for the protec-tion of life and property, especially with regard to high-impact events and more so in the developing world,"states the mandate of GEO.

EcosystemApplication of EO to ecosystem monitoring is invaluable,since through conventional means it is often impossibleto monitor ecosystems on the large scales they demand.For example, EO data allows for easy monitoring of the



harsh environs of the Arctic and thevast expanse of the Amazon rain-forests.

Human impact, not only in theform of habitat destruction, but alsoin the form of invasive species intro-duction and over-harvesting, is themost common threat to severalecosystems. Conservation goals areoften faced with the lack of quantita-tive data. One of the most importantapplications of EO data in this regardis ecosystem classification. EO data,which can give immense knowledgeof an area's vegetation, togetherwith ecological data, can help differentiate between dif-ferent ecosystems housing different species.

Since the 1970s, infrared EO studies have been con-ducted on Arctic ice sheets to track the loss in ice sheetvolume. In 2007, data indicated that the volume of theArctic ice sheets had fallen to less than half the averagevolume determined since the inception of the study. Thisis not an encouraging piece of information on the onlyecosystem that houses species such as the polar bear.

Forests and agricultureForests, with their immense importance to mankind,their susceptibility to climatic fluctuations and their con-stant threat from the ever-increasing demand for land,are in need of continual monitoring. The maintenance of

forest resource records and theirstatus over large areas and timespans allow an understanding ofparameters such as total area, rateof loss of forested land, and indirect-ly, estimation of the magnitude ofavailable forest resources. EO satel-lites provide a convenient and eco-nomic means of procuring suchinformation, even over areas thatare remote and inaccessible.

In 2009, Japan Aerospace Explo-ration Agency (JAXA)’s satelliteDaichi imaged, in entirety, theworld's forests at a resolution of 10

m, the first ever global forest imaging project at such aresolution. The aim of this project was to estimate theability of the forest cover to absorb and store carbon diox-ide, which has important implications towards globalwarming. On the other side of the globe, the Governmentof Brazil has, in partnership with the National Institute ofSpace Studies, monitored deforestation rates in the Ama-zon with the help of the CBERS satellites. They have esti-mated that the rate of deforestation in the Amazon hasdropped to its lowest level in over two decades.

The immediate need for EO data in agriculture isapparent when one considers the rapid increase in globalpopulation and the consequent rise in demand for agri-cultural produce. Proper management and developmentof the world's agricultural resources require extensiveinformation on agricultural set-ups, with respect to theirtypes, location, kind of produce, quantity of produce andchallenges faced. Applications of EO data in this fieldinclude crop assessment, crop-type classification, crophealth assessment, agricultural landscape mapping, cropyield estimation and soil analysis.

BiodiversityContinued economic growth and development are placingincreasing stress on biodiversity the world over. EO datais a powerful tool for conservationists to monitor wildlifein areas that are remote or difficult to access, or simplytoo large for land-based reconnaissance.

One of the most recent and perhaps one of the mostillustrative examples of the application of EO data inwildlife conservation is the discovery of rainforests onMount Mabu in northern Mozambique. Later exploration

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Continued economicgrowth and development

are placing increasingstress on biodiversity theworld ovver. EO data is a

powerful tool forconservationists to

monitor wildlife in areasthat are remote oor

difficult to access, orsimply too large for land-

based reconnaissance

52

of the virgin rainforests uncovered no fewer than threenew species of butterflies, a previously undiscoveredspecies of snake, seven threatened bird species and arare orchid. According to Kew, UK-based Royal BotanicGardens (RBG) botanist and expedition leader JonathanTimberlake, "Even today we cannot say we know all of theworld's key areas for biodiversity - there are still newones to discover."

EMERGING APPLICATIONS

HealthThe relationship between weather change and start of anepidemic is ancient wisdom based on centuries of obser-vation. EO's ability to forecast weather has been used toattempt the possibility of predicting disease outbreak.The attempts at applying EO to improve health-relateddecision making need systems to model, collect and dis-tribute coordinated epidemiological and environmentalinformation. These have to be tagged with land use/landcover, population density, sanitation systems, water sup-ply network and ancillary data that decide the vector, forpredicting, monitoring and constructing risk maps andtargeting interventions. Prof. Andy Morse, School of Envi-ronmental Science University of Liverpool, UK feels thatthe lack of ground truth in environmental observations,apart from the availability of meteorological, vegetation,soil, pollution and food availability data, is the cause ofslow progress in applications of EO in the health sector.

Ramesh Dhiman, Deputy Director, National Institute ofMalaria Research, Indian Council of Medical Researchobserves that 'the application of EO for ecological riskmapping at national and international level, along withdevelopment of early warning tools using climate and EOdata which is integrated with pollution data, is necessaryfor effective usage of EO data in the health sector."

Cadastral mappingIt is verifiably documented that land and property disputes cause more cases of homicide and violenceannually in a populated country like India than the deathsdue to war, strife and terrorism. To manage this, effortshave been initiated for cadastral mapping of the entirecountry. The backdrop of this exercise is EO data fromhigh resolution satellites like Cartosat and WorldView.Kumar Navulur of DigitalGlobe says, "With QuickBird, thepositional accuracy was 17 m off. That means one couldmake maps of 1:50,000 scale. WorldView 1 and 2 are just3 m off, meaning one can make maps of 1:5000 or 1:8000scale and we believe that that will come down to 1 m." He adds that EO data has the potential to be a significantsource of base layer for mapping, which will allow forthings like infrastructure development.

EO and location-based services The impact of convergence between GPS and EO is bestshowcased by commercial vehicular navigation devicesand the supporting vertical sectors of location-basedservices (LBS) that are proliferating from the marriage ofthese two technologies. Hervé Clauss, Direc-tor, Database Operations, TomTominforms that the companyuses imagery as a ref-erence for mapcreation/nor-malisa-tion,

Courtesy : GEOSS Workshop XXXI- Using Earth Observation for Health

Essential EO variables

which is the 'traditional' usage ofsuch data for geometry, lanes, 3Dand 2D city models, address verifi-cation, point of interest (POI) verifi-cation, new highway constructionwhile it also uses 'fresh' imagery in'reality check for change detection.'

EO is playing a decisive role inresources development and man-agement, which is today stronglyguided by ideologies of sustainabili-ty. Mineral exploration, including oiland gas, offers the prospect of'missed opportunity - revisited' due to quantum jumps inthe technology. V. Subramanyan, Professor in Earth Sci-ences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India,speaking in the context said, “EO in the context of mineralexploration offers a chance to rapidly, and if necessary,repeatedly survey large areas, in seeking the characteris-tic surface expressions or 'gossans' from more deeplyhidden ore deposits. Apart from the discovery of newmineral deposits, EO data is also being effectively used inmapping and registering property, infrastructure moni-toring, emergency monitoring and accident implicationsassessment along with environmental monitoring at min-ing and exploitation sites, says N. Sevastiyanov, GeneralDesigner, Gazprom Space Systems. Colin Grant, GSSCCore Member, Metocean Technical Authority, BP Explo-

ration says, "As the oil and gas industry is mov-ing to deeper waters and arctic

areas, sea ice and icebergmonitoring and fore-

casting, oil spillmonitoring

and sur-veillance

alongwith

combinations of EO data with in-situand modeled data to assist in fore-cast of key parameters - winds,waves, currents, water levels andsea ice, is being developed."

High resolution stereo imagery,radar, data and products like digital elevation mod-els (DEMs) are being adopted asbaseline data by insurance compa-nies for calculation of vulnerabilityratings. Procedures and algorithmsfor extracting bathymetry in nearshore environments have been suc-cessfully demonstrated. The days of

standalone imagery use are over. The proof lies in theincreasing demand and supply of thematic layers beingdeveloped over popular virtual earths. Today, even the layuser of these applications demands value addition.

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

Answering 'where is it' is getting easier by the day asground resolution improves. Answering 'what is it' everytime is not possible. Automated change detection is still atechnology which, if and when implemented successfully,will cause a boom and revival of applications which havebeen shelved for the lack of reliable and repetitive tech-niques. The raw product from the EO satellites and sen-sors was, is and will continue to be the base data for allearth surface, atmosphere, and, to some extent, sub-sur-face, monitoring, investigation and analysis.

Mathieu Benoit, Director, Earth Observation Group,VIASAT GeoTechnologies Inc. concludes, "The futurebelongs to high resolution (<50 cm) and cost is not muchof an issue. Stereo capacity and access on demand along,with the capacity to produce information regardless ofsensor type, will be the deciding factors." The days of veryhigh resolution imageries in real colour are passé, butthe information, intelligence and knowledge extractedfrom them and made available in multitude of themeticlayers, along with value additions and guaranteed infor-mation updates, is the present and future. The ubiquity ofEO is unfortunately not as easy to depict or state as thatof geospatial technology.

Dr. Hrishikesh SamantSr. Associate Editor (Honorary), [email protected]

53

The days of very highresolution imageries inreal colour are passé,but the information,

intelliigence andknowledge extracted fromthem and made availablein multitude of themeticlayers, along wwith value

additions and guaranteedinformation updates, isthe present and future.


Spain's dual EO system on the anvil

Spain is set to become the first European country to havea dual earth observation (EO) system, radar and optical,for both civilian and military use. Spanish Defence Minis-ter Carme Chacon informed that radar technologyinstalled on the Paz satellite will enable up to 100 imagesof the earth's surface to be taken per day at a resolutionof up to 1 yard. In three years' time, this capacity will bejoined by that of the Ingenio satellite and its optical tech-nology. It is the first time that the Spanish space industryhas undertaken the challenge to build a satellite of thissize and complexity to be assembled and manufacturedentirely in Spain. Chacon added that the Paz satellite,which will be in orbit in 2013, will be able to detect theposition of any ship in the world that could possiblybecome the victim of hijacking, through an automatic AISidentification system.

Technology

GLONASS, Beidou fully operational

In December 2011, China and Russia announced thattheir global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) Beidouand GLONASS, respectively, were fully operational. Whilethere are ten navigation satellites in Beidou's network atpresent, the GLONASS system is a constellation of 24satellites. Six more satellites are scheduled to belaunched in 2012 to extend the reach of Bediou to mostparts of Asia. In total, Beidou will be a constellation of 35navigation satellites, offering global coverage by 2020.Following the launch of GLONASS, Russia announced a

new deal withIndia under whichIndian defencewill useGLONASS serviceto receive preci-sion signals thatwill allow mis-siles, includingthose fired fromnuclear subma-

rine Chakra, to strike within half a metre of distant tar-gets. As per another clause in the deal, India will helpRussia produce GLONASS equipment.

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Year 2011 witnessed how geospatial technology evolved and innovated itself as per expanding marketdemand. In early 2011, it helped experts measure and minimise the devastating impact of an 8.9 magnituudequake, followed by the 'double tsunami' in Japan. Later on, scientists explored the latent potenttial of LiDAR,which could make possible driverless cars. The business domain saw increased competitiion with the entry of Glonass and Beidou while on the policy front India went liberal and embraced aa new remote sensing data policy. Here is a quick recap of the news and news makers of the year thatt was.


Satellites unravel Japan tsunami mysteryThe tsunami that devastated the north-east coast of Japan on March 11 wascreated by at least two wave fronts that merged to form a far more destruc-tive 'double tsunami', according to NASA and researchers at Ohio State Uni-versity. Using GPS measurements, scientists determined that the 8.9 magni-tude quake, which result-ed in the tsunami, movedthe main island of Japanby 8 feet (2.4 meters) andshifted the earth on itsaxis. Dr. Y Tony Song, aresearch scientist atNASA's jet propulsionlaboratory in California,said ''It was a one in 10million chance that wewere able to observe thisdouble wave with satellites.'' He added that the same phenomenon couldhave caused the Chilean tsunami in 1960, in which 200 people in Japan andHawaii were killed. At another front, a team of US and Japanese scientistsclaimed that for the first time ever a tsunami was observed by radars, whichraised the possibility of new early warning systems. The scientists revealedthis finding in their paper titled, Japan Tsunami Current Flows Observed byHF Radars on Two Continents.

Driverless carpowered by LiDAR

Year 2011 saw Google introduceits miraculous driverless car,which is guided by LiDAR tech-nology. The car, worth USD75000, provides drivers with a360 degree and 3D view of thesurroundings. LiDAR tech willguide the car at every road andtraffic signal and also detectsother cars and pedestrians. Itwill work in all weather condi-tions and is specially designedfor those with mobility issues.By the end of 2011, a US patent

for self-driving cars was award-ed to Google. The car's func-tioning is based on two sets ofsensors. While the first identi-fies a "landing strip" when thevehicle stops, the second setreceives data informing themachine where it is positionedand where it should go. Thelanding strip allows a humandriving the vehicle to knowacceptable parking places forthe vehicle. Additionally, thelanding strip may indicate to thevehicle that it is parked in aregion where it may transitioninto autonomous mode.

Japan's northeast coast

Coming soon: Robot-powered mapsFleets of robots could assist Google with collecting information, replacing thehumans that photograph streets for Google Maps. A recent media report, cit-ing the Google X lab based on the company's Mountain View campus,stressed that at Google, some of the outlandish projects may not be as muchof a stretch as they first appear, even though they defy the bounds of the

company's main websearch business. Forexample, space eleva-tors, a long-time fan-tasy of Google'sfounders and otherSilicon Valley entrepre-neurs, could haulthings into space (Intheory, they involverocketless space travel

along a cable anchored to Earth). "Google is collecting the world's data, sonow it could be collecting the solar system's data," said Rodney Brooks, aprofessor emeritus at M.I.T.'s computer science and artificial intelligence laband founder of Heartland Robotics.

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Applications

G-tech leads 'year of discoveries'

Geospatial technology, with its power to gaze beneath theearth's surface, helped scientists unravel several myster-ies around the world during the past year. A team fromthe University of Leicester in the UK used satellites andaerial photographs to identify the remains of a lost civili-sation of the Sahara in Libya's south-western desert. Theteam discovered more than 100 fortified farms and vil-lages with castle-like structures dating between AD 1-500.Similarly, Chinese archaeologists found evidence indicating that the mysterious ancient city of Loulan (Kroraina)once had highly-developed agricultural systems. Scientists from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, under theChinese Academy of Sciences, conducted remote sensing procedures in the area and found that there were oncelarge tracts of farmlands in Loulan. On the other hand, Egyptian government initiated work on experimental wells inthe desert after satellite images lead the discovery of new access points to a huge underground water oasis, knownas the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS), spanning Chad, Egypt, Libya and Sudan.


NASA finds liquid water on MarsAn image combining the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter(MRO) imagery with 3D modelling showed flows thatappear on a slope inside Mars' Newton crater. The sourceobservation was made by the high resolution imaging sci-ence experiment camera on the MRO. Some aspects ofthe observations still puzzle researchers, but flows of liq-uid brine fit the features' characteristics better thanalternate hypotheses. Sites with active flows get warm,

even in the shallowsubsurface, to sus-tain liquid waterthat is about assalty as earth'soceans, while purewater would freezeat the observedtemperatures. Thefeatured image isonly about 0.5 to 5yards or metreswide, with lengthsup to hundreds of

yards. The width is much narrower than previouslyreported gullies on Martian slopes. However, some ofthose locations display more than 1,000 individual flows.

GPS-powered system to save fuelGeospatial tech took a step ahead towards resolving theproblem of fast depleting global oil resources. Scania, anautomobile com-pany, developed'Scania ActivePrediction'. Thecruise controlsystem uses GPSto determinevehicles' positionand to predict thetopography of theroad ahead. Sub-sequently, thespeed is adjusted before entering an ascent or descent,helping drivers make the most of every drop of fuel. Thesystem can deliver a fuel saving of up to 3 percent whendriving on undulating stretches of road. Based on a 40-tonne truck combination (tractor unit and semitrailer)running 180,000 km/year, a fuel saving of 3 percent wouldreduce fuel consumption by about 1,700 litres per year.This is equivalent to an annual reduction in fuel costs ofalmost EUR 2,200 and a reduction in carbon dioxideemissions of over 4 tonnes! The company will start todeliver trucks with the system soon.

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India adopts RS data policy 2011The Government of India (GoI) released its much-awaitedRemote Sensing Data Policy (RSDP – 2011) on July 4,2011, bringing much needed relief to the industry. As perthe new policy, all satellite remote sensing data of reso-lutions up to 1 metre will be distributed on a non-dis-criminatory basis and ‘on request’. The 2001 policyrequired data of up to 5.8 meter resolution to be protect-ed. To get data better than 1 metre resolution, privateagencies will need clearance from an interagency highresolution image clearance committee (HRC). However,government bodies can obtain such data without any fur-ther clearance.

Some of the highlights of the policy include:- Department of Space (DOS) will be the nodal agency for allactions under this policy.

- The government, through DOS, will be the sole and exclusiveowner of all data collected/received from IRS.

- Any organisation interested in operating a remote sensingsatellite from India, will need license and/or permission of thegovernment.

- While the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) ofISRO/DOS is vested with the authority to acquire and dissemi-nate all satellite remote sensing data in India, both from Indi-an and foreign satellites, Antrix Corporation Ltd. (of DOS) willbe responsible for grant of license for acquisition/distributionof IRS data outside India.

In addition, the GoI announced a project to standardiseGIS in the country. An interim core group of geospatialexperts, formed by Planning Commission of India, prepared a draft for India's National GIS, a state-of-theart online information bank. It is expected to be fullyoperational in 3 years.

Governments offer data access to common usersUnrestricted access to data has always been considered as the first steptowards optimum utilisation of spatial technology. As a step ahead inthis direction, Bhuvan, Indian geoportal, will now provide satellite data tothe general public. The Dutch government too announced two majordata releases. The first initiative pertains to the Ministry for EconomicAffairs, which announced the creation of a national database for satelliteimages that will be available to the public and entrepreneurs. Anotherinitiative is from the Ministry for Infrastructure and Environment, whichoffered full access of the 'base registry' of topographic data, maintainedby the Kadaster. Towards the end of the year 2011, Brazil also joined therace of open data as it announced that images from its first indigenoussatellite, Amazon-1 (to be launched in 2013), will be offered free of charge to neighbouring countries.

Policy

Federal bodies to lower data storage costThe General Services Administration (GSA), US, is work-ing with several federal agencies to provide a common,cloud-based infrastructure where agencies can accessgeospatial data, in an effort to lower storage costs andreduce duplication. The GSA recently entered into anagreement with the US Agriculture and Interior Depart-

ment as well as theEnvironmental Protec-tion Agency (EPA) to move geospatialdata from the geoda-ta.gov portal ontodata.gov, informedDavid McClure, associ-ate administrator withGSA's Office of CitizenServices and Innova-tive Technologies. Geodata.gov wasdesigned to provideone-stop web access

to geospatial information under the Geospatial One-Stopproject, an e-government initiative managed by the USGeological Service. However, since data.gov has beenmigrated to a cloud computing platform, there is suffi-cient capacity to provide provisioning services and flexi-bility to expand the platform, if needed.


Market Reports

3D laser scanning market to double by 2015

The 3D laser scanning market including hardware, software and services willgrow with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.4 percent, accordingto a report by ARC advisory group. In addition, the report forecasted that themarket will double in size by 2015. 3D laser scanning equipment senses theshape of an object and collects data for the location of the outer surface. Thisdistinct technology has found applications in many industries including dis-crete and process manufacturing, utilities, construction, archaeology, law

enforcement, government and entertainment. In the past year,department of transportation in the UK awarded GBP 2.7 mil-

lion (USD 4.2 million) contract to UK-based 3D Laser Map-ping for 3D laser scanners. The contract came

after realisation that 3D laser scannerscould drive down the GBP 1 billion

annual cost of congestion causedby collisions on motorways.

It is pertinent to mentionthat in early 2011, the

DOT had already procuredscanners worth GBP 3

million.

APAC geospatial market set to growThe Asia Pacific (APAC) earth observation (EO) market earned over USD 70.1million in 2010 and will reach USD 220.5 million in 2018, according to a mar-ket report by Frost & Sullivan. Similarly, TechNavio's market report revealedthat the GIS market in the APAC region is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14percent. Frost & Sullivan's report stressed that the enormous quantity ofhigh-resolution, multi-spectral and hyper-spectral data availablein a short span has improved decision-making processes forseveral commercial and government users. Policy makersin this region are ramping up government spending forspace and satellite imagery endeavours. In addition,the report observed that by 2018, satelliteimagery is expected to become a commodity.About the GIS market, TechNavio'sreport observed that in spite ofthe demand for GIS solutionsin the APAC region, inte-gration issues with cloudtechnologies are hin-dering the growth ofthis market.

'Sat data sales totouch 4 bn'

The year gone by brought plentyof good news for the satelliteimagery industry. Highlightingthe ever expanding demand forsatellite data, Adam Keith, Direc-tor, Earth Observation (EO) -Euroconsult revealed that globalsatellite data sales are expectedto rise at a compound annualgrowth rate (CAGR) of 12 percentover the decade, reaching nearlyUSD 4 billion by 2020. Accordingto Euroconsult, EO commercialdata sales reached USD 1.3 bil-lion in 2010. Optical data repre-sented 83 percent of overallsales, with the remaining 17 per-cent from SAR. The majority (60percent) of data revenues in 2010were from very high resolutionoptical systems to support a pre-dominantly government defencecustomer base. The number ofhigh-resolution imaging satel-lites in operation offering com-mercial data is expected to near-ly double over 2010-2015. Over40 countries are projected tolaunch EO satellite capacity by2020.



'Global LBS marketto touch EUR 300 mn'

Global revenues for mobile location platforms will grow toEUR 300 million in 2016,according to a new marketreport by Berg Insight.

Annual revenues for mobilelocation platforms, including A-GPS servers and middlewareplatforms, are projected to growfrom about EUR 150 million in2010 to EUR 300 million in 2016.Ericsson remains the leadingvendor in terms of number ofcontracts for location platforms,

ahead of Nokia Siemens Networks and TeleCommunica-tion Systems.

Governments and telecomregulators in many parts of the world are introducingstricter emergency call and lawful intercept mandates that require network operatorsto invest in location platforms.Moreover, the Strategy Analytics Wireless Media Strategies (WMS) observed that the privacy concerns willbarely be a speed bump in theevolution of location-basedservices (LBS).

Acquisitions

With acquisition Bentley enhances modellingcapabilitiesBentley Systems used its annual Be Inspired event to project its futuristicapproach towards the solutions market for infrastructure design, constructionand operation. The company announced two important acquisitions andlaunched a new software. The company acquired Pointools Ltd, hardware-neutral provider of point cloud software technology, to integrate point cloudprocessing in innovative ways throughout its product portfolio. The move willexpand Bentley's 2D and 3D modelling capabilities into cloud computing. Thecompany also announced the acquisition of FormSys, a software developmentcompany with a proven track record in 3D design, analysisand construction software for structuralengineering, offshore engineeringand naval architecture. Theacquisition will expandBentley's SACS (StructuralAnalysis Computer System)offerings for the design andanalysis of floating structures,further extending its reach in offshoreenergy market. In addition, the companyannounced the immediate commercial availabilityof its new AECOsim Energy Simulator software and the commercial availabili-ty of its new AECOsim Building Designer software in early 2012.

Trimble on acquisition spreeIn the year 2011, Trimble made two major acquisitions. It acquired DynamicSurvey Solutions and MyTopo. According to the company's press statement,the acquisition of Dynamic Survey is expected to expand Trimble's presence in

the seismic survey industry. The business will be reported as part ofTrimble's engineering and constructionsegment. The acquisition of MyTopo willexpand Trimble's ability to offer uniquemap content and new outdoor-centricproducts. It will also enhance its mobileapps-Trimble Outdoors, AllSport GPS, Geo-cache Navigator, Cabela's Recon Hunt andBackpacker GPS Trails. In addition, thecompany also informed that it entered into

a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Ashtech S.A.S. The acquisitionis expected to expand Trimble's spectra precision portfolio of survey solutionsand allow the company to better address emerging markets worldwide.


US launches NEON projectThe US government commissioned development of the national ecologicalobservatory network (NEON) with the National Science Foundation awardinga USD 434 million ten-year grant. The network will consist of 20 core obser-vatories representing distinct eco-regions throughout the US. These will be

bolstered by temporary stations that can be relocated whereverdata needs to be collected. The siteswill house equipment and host visit-ing researchers while gathering arange of environmental data over atleast three decades. Once the entirenetwork is up and running, some15,000 sensors will work in concertwith scientists on the ground to supply roughly 500 distinct cate-gories of data ranging from basicweather readings to concentrations

of ozone in the air and nitrogen in the soils, leaves and streams. Scientistswill collect tens of thousands of samples, including soil, water, plants andsmall mammals. Officials expect the network to be operational by 2016.

Projects

Digitisation in full swing in Rwanda

In a bid to promote apt management of land records across Rwanda, theRwanda Natural Resources Authority (RNRA) digitised over 3.3 million plotsof land, announced Didier Sagashya, Deputy Director General in charge oflands and mapping. "The promotion of GIS will enable Rwanda to get theoptimal information concerning infrastructure and business planning andthis will be the best positionfor the country to deal withland issues," he observed. Inaddition, he announced thatRNRA will carry out trainingprogrammes across thecountry to ensure that peopleclearly understand the importance of GIS indevelopment. In most coun-tries including India, digitisa-tion of records largelyremains confined to making available scanned copies of title deeds online.Without fresh surveys of properties, digitisation fails to reflect errors in prop-erty titles. At a time when land disputes continue to clog courts, fresh sur-veys are a prerequisite for proper digitisation and land reforms.

Recession blueshaunt industry

Budget cuts and scrapped dealscontinued to make headlines asthe geospatial industry facedplenty of stern challenges during2011. GeoEye announced that itwill not meet its previouslyannounced revenue target for2011, mainly because its biggestcustomer, the US government, isslowing its contract awardprocess in the face of budgetpressures. It was also learnt thatan unnamed European customerthat had been expected to make alarge order has decided to scrapthe idea. On the other hand, theUS Air Force is considering ter-minating a multibillion-dollarweather satellite being developedby Northrop Grumman Corp. Themove came as the air force huntsfor ways to trim its budget andhelp the Pentagon achieve aboutUSD 489 billion in cuts over thenext 10 years. In addition, duringGEOINT 2011 conference, USCongressmen Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and C.A. Dutch Ruppers-berger (D-Md.) hinted at the pos-sibility of more budget cuts, giventhe reality of budget austerity inthe years to come.

Business


Iran controls 'lost' US drones

Using GPSspoofingtechnique,Iran guidedthe "lost"stealth USdrone (RQ-170 Sen-tinel) to anintact land-ing insidehostile terri-tory, accord-ing to an Iran-ian engineer now working on the captured drone's systems inside Iran. The engineer explained that Iranused the knowledge gleaned from previous downed US drones and a reverse-engineering technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September,the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.

"The spoofing technique that the Iranians used made the drone land on its own where we wanted it to,without having to crack the remote-control signals andcommunications from the US control centre," stated the engineer. The US military has reportedly been aware ofvulnerabilities with pirating unencrypted drone datastreams since the Bosnia campaign in the mid-1990s.

Miscellaneous

Space agencies face cyber attacks

Computer hackers interfered with two US governmentsatellites four times in 2007 and 2008 through a groundstation in Norway, according to a congressional commis-sion. The intrusions on the satellites, used for earth cli-mate and terrain observation, underscore the potentialdanger posed by hackers, according to excerpts from thefinal draft of the 2011 annual report by the US-China Eco-nomic and Security Review Commission. The reportexplained that Landsat-7 earth observation satellite sys-tem experienced 12 or more minutes of interference inOctober 2007 and July 2008. Hackers also interfered with

a Terra AM-1 earthobservation satellitetwice, for two min-utes in June 2008and nine minutes inOctober that year.Hackers attackedGeospatial Informa-tion Authority ofJapan (GSI) and

analysed computer IDs and passwords, enabling a partyto gain access to the server. To deal with such problems,Japan is developing a virus that could track down thesource of a cyber attack and neutralise its programme.The weapon is the culmination of a USD 2.3 millionthree-year project entrusted by the government to tech-nology maker Fujitsu Ltd.

Uncontrolled re-entry of satellitesThe year 2011 witnessed uncontrolled re-entry of Upper AtmosphereResearch satellite (UARS) and Roentgen Satellite (ROSAT). TheUARS, a NASA satellite, was dead in space plunged back to earth,but till the end of the show, it remained a mystery that when andwhere the satellite will fall. And, the incident was repeated byROSAT, a German satellite. Just as for NASA's UARS satellite, whichplunged into the atmosphere in September, there was high uncer-tainty about the final moments of ROSAT. Experts had calculatedthat perhaps as much as 1.6 tonnes of wreckage - more than half the spacecraft's launch mass - could have ridden outthe destructive forces of re-entry and hit the planet. In the case of UARS, the probable mass of surviving material wasput at only half a tonne (out of a launch mass of more than six tonnes).

Infographic: Iran controls drone

FEBRUARY07 - 09 February India Geospatial Forum2012

Gurgaon, Indiahttp://www.indiageospatialfo-rum.org

29 FebruaryGeoNext Conference 2012

Sydney, Australiahttp://www.geonext.com.au

APRIL02 - 04 AprilWhere Conference 2012

San Francisco, CAhttp://whereconf.com/where2012

03 - 04 AprilMiddle East GeospatialForum 2012

Doha, State of Qatarhttp://megf.org

23 - 27 AprilGeospatial World Forum 2012

Amsterdamhe Netherlandshttp://www.geospatialworldfo-rum.org

MAY14 - 17 MayGlobal Geospatial Conference 2012 (GSDI 13)

Quebec, Canadahttp://www.gsdi.org/gsdiconf/gsdi13

15 - 17 MayBe Together: The BentleyUser Conference

Philadelphia, USAhttp://www.bentley.com/en-US/Community/BE+Conference

29 - 31 MayMundoGEO Connect 2012

Sao Paulo, Brazilhttp://mundogeoconnect.com/2012

JUNE4 - 7 JuneHexagon 2012

Las Vegas, Nevada, USAhttp://www.hexagonconference.com

21 - 23 JuneGeospatial EXPO 2012

Japanhttp://www.g-expo.jp/en/index.html

JULY3 - 6 JulyGI_Forum 2012

Salzburg, Austriahttp://www.gi-forum.org

JulyGeoIntelligence Asia 2012

New Delhi, Indiahttp://www.gisdevelopment.net/geointelligenceasia

23 - 27 JulyESRI User Conference

Sandiego, C.A, USAhttp://www.esri.com/events/user-conference/index.html

AUGUST05 - 10 August International GeologicalCongress

Brisbane, Australiahttp://www.34igc.org

14 - 17 AugustLatin America Geospatial Forum 2012

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.http://lagf.org

25 Aug - 1 Sept.ISPRS 2012

Melbourne, Australia http://www.isprs2012.org

SEPTEMBER

06 - 08 SeptemberState of the Map 2012

Tokyo, Japanhttp://stateofthemap.org

10 - 15 SeptemberFOSS4G 2012

Beijing, Chinahttp://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2012

OCTOBER9 - 11 OctoberINTERGEO 2012

Hanover, Germanyhttp://www.intergeo.de/en/englisch/intergeo/naechste_termine.php?navid=17

NOVEMBER5 - 7 NovemberTrimble Dimensions 2012

Las Vegas, UShttp://www.trimble.com/trimbleevents.shtml


Investing in attending an event can often prove to be the best thing that one could doto take the business to new heights. Imagine being able to learn firsthand from expertsand market leaders who have a plethora of experience in the geospatial domain. Theseleaders can get sharp minds to shape the way ahead for their businesses. One canmeet and discuss business strategies by shaking hands in person, be it in the bar,walking down the hallways, or in the breakout sessions. So, here is a list of events thatwill remain in spotlight in 2012.

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THE 3D GIS FOR INFRASTRUCTURE – EXPERIENCE THE POWER OF BENTLEY MAPGIS is going 3D and the benefits are enormous. With Bentley Map, you’ll gain the additional advantage of a GIS that’s both intrinsically 3D and optimized for the rigorous demands of sustaining infrastructure. Bentley Map supports 3D objects in Oracle Spatial natively, has smart 3D object editing tools, and executes advanced 3D spatial analyses as well as standard 2D routines.

Bentley Map is the choice of infrastructure professionals around the globe. It has all the power of MicroStation to make workflows efficient, and includes innovative and comprehensive map finish-ing functions as well as advanced parcel management functionality.

Featuring an extended API, the latest version of Bentley Map is optimized for developers and en-terprise deployments alike. It comes in three editions to meet a range of user needs – from light editing and review, to 2D and 3D spatial information creation and analysis, to advanced raster image management and long transactions using Oracle Spatial.

To find out how Bentley Map is advancing GIS for infrastructure, visit www.bentley.com/GT. For inquiries contact Malaysia: +60 3 2054 7000, Singapore: +65 6225 6158.

© 2011 Bentley Systems, Incorporated. Bentley, the “B” Bentley logo, Bentley Map, and MicroStation are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

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Data courtesy City of Quebec

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