How can a digital replica of Earth help us understand our planet’s past, present and future? As part of the fourth edition of Φ-week taking place this week, a group of European scientists have put forward their ideas on the practical implementation of Digital Twins and the potential application areas for a Digital Twin Earth in the real world.
In the coming decades, population growth and human activities are expected to amplify the current pressures on critical resources such as fresh water and food, intensify the stress on land and marine ecosystems, as well as increase environmental pollution and its impacts on health and biodiversity.
These threats, comprising rising sea levels, increasing ocean acidification and more intense extreme events like floods and heatwaves, will need to be closely monitored, especially for our most vulnerable populations.
Cloud-based EO platforms are an integral element for facilitating the paradigm change in Earth Observation (“bringing the algorithm to the data” et al.). Digital EO platforms are “Enablers” as they can boost the productivity of scientific/commercial users by simplifying the commonly encountered complex EO workflows. Key enabling elements include for example powerful and intuitive analytical operators, scalability of processing operations, efficient pixel-level data access and dynamic allocation of compute resources. The “Enabling EO Platforms” session at the 2021 ESA Φ-Week will showcase some key activities in the EO platforms domain.
First, openEO platform will be introduced by Alexander Jacob (EURAC). It is a highly federated, open-source EO analytics environment that abstracts underlying complexities when extracting value-added information from petabyte-scale data archives. The launch as an operational service will take place during this Φ-week with core deployments in multiple cloud environments (EODC/VSC4, CreoDIAS, TerraScope plus a data federation with SentinelHub/EuroDataCube).
With a boom in the global market for Earth observation information and data products, participants at this year’s Φ-week conference have been digging deep into the ‘market perspective’. This important topic includes how to gain a better understanding of what governments, industry, the public and other users of Earth observation products and services need and expect to create value for society and the economy.
According to the latest report from the Geospatial Industry Outlook and Readiness Index, GeoBuiz, the Earth observation industry as a whole is estimated to have been worth almost US $58 billion in 2019, rising to almost US $76 billion in 2020. Moreover, it is thought that this steep rise merely marks the beginning of bigger things to come.
In addition, with respect to Europe industry, the 2021 survey published by the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies, EARSC, indicates that in 2020 there was a 24% growth in the number of companies associated with the Earth observation industry, as well as a 24% increase in revenue and a 17% rise in employees, compared to 2019.
Two key sessions on today’s Φ-week agenda painted a bright future for the proliferation of AI-backed Earth observation applications. With the latest news on the Φ-sat missions, together with examples showcasing the widening array of commercial and institutional use cases, the speakers presented a wealth of inspiring and thought-provoking material.
This morning’s session was devoted to the Φ-sat concept, covering both the achievements of the Φ-sat-1 experiment and the development of its next incarnation, Φ-sat-2. Launched just over a year ago, the Φ-sat-1 experiment was set up to study the impact of onboard Artificial Intelligence (AI) on EO data collection. The project developers Cosine Remote Sensing and the University of Pisa were on hand during the session to report on progress. Spain’s Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya was also well represented, with four talks on subjects such as soil moisture and sea-ice extent from the FSSCat cubesat-based mission, which is also hosting the Φ-sat-1 experiment.
Other Φ-sat-1 suppliers also took part, including Ubotica Technologies. The company presented results on a topic at the very heart of the Φ-sat-1 experiment mission: the Movidius Myriad 2 AI Accelerator. This chip is the engine behind the satellite’s data processing capabilities and, as Ubotica’s Chief Technology Officer Aubrey Dunne explained, its performance is being monitored continuously while in-flight: “Φ-sat-1 has provided unique in-flight performance data for the Myriad 2 AI accelerator, giving valuable insight into the reliability of the device and the accuracy of its AI computations. Results of in-flight self-test diagnostics from Φ-sat-1 indicate that Myriad 2 was 100% functional and performed all verifiable inference requests flawlessly, demonstrating the reliability and practicality of AI on cubesats and providing valuable flight heritage to support its integration into future AI-rich satellite missions.”
Φ-sat-2 is being developed by a group of entities across Europe. Lead company Open Cosmos was at the session to give an overview of the platform architecture and its key features. “The biggest challenge on this mission for us is facilitating all the needs of the AI applications that will be running onboard,” said Irina Babkina, Systems Team Lead for the Φ-sat-2 project at Open Cosmos. “What we’re working on at the moment to meet that challenge is ensuring that the application-enabling algorithms we’ll be running actually have the required performance.”
At the helm during the presentations and round-table discussion was ESA Φ-sat activity lead Massimiliano Pastena. He was impressed by the progress made on both mission variants: “Φ-sat-1 is generating useful data which is helping to demonstrate the worth of onboard AI in EO satellites. This is laying the foundation for the parallel development of Φ-sat-2, which is scheduled for launch next year. As we’ve heard today, the power to upload, deploy and update AI applications in orbit, almost as simply as we do on our smartphones, will ensure that Φ-sat-2 becomes the benchmark for the next generation of flexible, user-oriented nanosatellites.”
The theme of targeting user needs continued in the afternoon with the System of Systems session. Giuseppe Ottavianelli, Head of ESA’s Earth Observation Applications Section and one of the session chairs, outlined the scope of the gathering: “The system-of-systems concept is about the possibilities deriving from the synergy between publicly-funded EO missions and private commercial assets. With global coverage and the long-term availability of calibrated data, public missions such as the Copernicus Sentinels form a solid basis for commercial investments in terms of both the space segment and downstream value-adding industry, giving rise to a host of customer-tailored applications.”
The session provided a fitting exposition of the breadth of such applications. Alongside the more established areas of agriculture, forestry and coastal monitoring, the speakers also addressed infrastructure asset management, urban planning and even the use of Very High Resolution (VHR) data for security applications. One talk in particular, given by ESA CHIME Operations Manager Antonio Gabriele, highlighted the potential gains from public-private EO initiatives and explored the idea of a hybrid constellation of CHIME and VHR smallsats, along with the applications that could result from this combined fleet.
Commenting on this and the other talks in the session, Head of the ESA EO System Architect Office Antonio Ciccolella was upbeat about the prospects for continuing growth in the sector: “The CHIME+VHR hybrid idea shows just how the system-of-systems concept could bring significant benefits for society at large. Underpinned by technologies such as AI, the Internet of Things and Blockchains, we expect the emerging abundance of new hardware and applications to deliver what could be called the Future Earth Intelligence System. The presentation from Rafael Guzman of Satlantis is another concrete example of private-sector investment in space, complementing Copernicus observations and using Sentinel data as a reference for the endeavour.”
ESA InCubed and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) have signed a contract to support a new development initiative focused on Artificial Intelligence for Earth Observation (AI4EO). The three-year programme will involve setting up an innovation seedbed where DFKI’s AI experts will collaborate with major industry players on new EO business cases.
Earth observation is enjoying an ever-widening field of applications, from crop yield forecasting and land cover detection to urban planning and disaster management. However, with the sheer volume of data generated, simple manual analysis is often no longer practicable, giving rise to the need for automatic Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as Machine Learning (ML).
The funding contract for the AI4EO Solution Factory was confirmed yesterday at this year’s ESA Φ-week event. Commenting at the signing ceremony, ESA Acting Director for Earth Observation Programmes Toni Tolker-Nielsen emphasised the landmark nature of the activity: “I’m very pleased to be here for the launch of this initiative, which is the first of its kind supported by ESA. We see a great deal of potential in the AI4EO Solution Factory, and I look forward to following its progress in delivering AI-powered EO solutions to customers.”
“This exciting InCubed activity will allow DFKI, together with major German industry partners, to show what great benefits Earth observation can unfold through the use of AI. We anticipate that the AI4EO Solution Factory will break new ground in the commercialisation of Earth observation for various industry sectors,” added Michael Nyenhuis, InCubed Programme Coordinator at the German Space Agency at DLR.
Prof. Andreas Dengel, Executive Director at DFKI Kaiserslautern and Head of Smart Data & Knowledge Services, spoke of some of the envisaged benefits: “The AI4EO Solution Factory creates a collaborative environment to open up new business scenarios in the field of Earth observation, based on the combined expertise of DFKI and ESA, and to develop customised AI solutions for partners and users. Our transfer lab ESA_Lab@DFKI, which was founded at the beginning of the year, also provides the perfect framework to explore further technology needs in ESA projects and help shape modern space applications and resulting business models with the latest AI methods.”
DFKI Project Manager Marlon Nuske explained the Solution Factory’s model: “The central idea is to leverage synergies from the development of AI solutions for various Earth observation use cases. While each individual solution will be unique in its applications, many of the underlying building blocks can be reused for additional products and projects.”
“The support from InCubed will inject some essential financial impetus into the AI4EO Solution Factory,” Mr. Nuske continued. “We’re officially kicking off this week, with several leading industrial corporations already on board for the first joint product development in the agricultural sector.”
ESA Technical Officer Nicolas Longépé was enthused by the Solution Factory’s prospects: “This is the largest ever InCubed initiative with a German partner, and we’re certain the AI4EO Solution Factory will produce important advances in AI-driven EO applications over the next three years and beyond. The genesis of the collaboration, initially between DFKI and the Φ-lab Explore Office and now with InCubed, is a salient example of our ‘innovate and apply under-one-roof’ approach.”
Timed to coincide with this year’s Φ-week event, ESA InCubed and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) have announced a new initiative to design and test a high-throughput payload downlink chain for small Earth observation satellites. The module aims to provide data processing and transfer capabilities that are future-proofed for tomorrow’s onboard imagers.
Current and even more future satellite imaging payloads are generating multi-dimensional, high-volume data that can exceed the throughput capacity of small satellites. To tackle this data bottleneck, a consortium of the University of Surrey, Craft Prospect Limited and SSTL has been formed to develop product enhancements for the latter’s Flexible & Intelligent Payload Chain (FIPC) solution.
The advanced hardware architecture of SSTL’S FIPC will provide the basis for a new intelligent and adaptive data downlink, along with a state-of-the-art framework for software-defined data processing onboard the satellite. Processing tasks may include data calibration, data compression, image thumbnailing and Machine Learning (ML) for image classification.
SSTL Managing Director Phil Brownnett set out the vision for the leading-edge payload chain: “The FIPC solution will significantly improve the capabilities of small Earth observation satellites by increasing data rates to match the capacity of the onboard imager system. This will boost both the volume and complexity of the data that can be downlinked on a single satellite pass – a step up in performance that will match our customers’ business plans and ambitions.”
SSTL, Craft Prospect Limited and the University of Surrey will work together on the FIPC solution and onboard processing applications. Following the design phases, the consortium will demonstrate and evaluate the unit’s features on a flight-representative testbed.
Carlos Urbina Ortega, ESA Technical Officer for the activity, sees a number of advantages to be gained from the FIPC: “We envisage substantial benefits from this InCubed investment, not least because of the system flexibility and computational power that the FIPC affords. Capabilities such as onboard ML acceleration for enhanced data management and services, together with in-orbit application reconfiguration, will ensure that small-satellite missions remain agile and end-user focused.”
Kicking off with a bold flourish, Φ-week 2021 promises to bring space even closer to the forefront of addressing society’s biggest challenges, namely issues associated with the climate crisis, while boosting the economy through transformative New Space, artificial intelligence, and quantum and cognitive computing.
ESA’s Φ-week is now in its fourth edition, and each year this forward-looking event is increasingly relevant to society, business and the economy.
In his opening address, Josef Aschbacher, ESA’s Director General said, “Europe faces unprecedented societal, economic, and security challenges. Space has enormous untapped potential to play in tackling pressing current and future crises, while simultaneously providing new impulse for the European space sector. We need to develop smart, automated services and applications to protect lives of people and to increase the protection of assets and natural resources.”
Focusing on the New Space economy and innovations in Earth observation, ESA’s fourth Φ-week kicks off on Monday 11 October. Join us live for two of the main sessions: the Opening session on Monday at 10:30 CEST and the Blending New Space Technologies and Services session on Tuesday at 16:00 CEST.
As the world starts to return to normality in the wake of the COVID pandemic, this year’s Φ-week is a hybrid event, with registered participants attending virtually and invited speakers present at ESA’s Centre for Earth Observation in Italy.
However, part of this not-to-be-missed event can be enjoyed by all – simply tune into ESA’s Web TV and following the live transmission links.
ESA, HPS GmbH and LSS GmbH have reached an important milestone in the development of the European Large Deployable Reflector or LDR. The team has demonstrated the automatic motorised deployment of the engineering model of the eight-metre wide antenna reflector. The design, build and testing of this full-size engineering model is a significant step forward in the development of the European LDR that will be carried on the Copernicus Imaging Microwave Radiometer (CIMR) mission.
Antennas are essential components of satellites. For example, antennas of Earth observation radars focus the radar pulses on the observed ground area. For imaging microwave radiometers, a bigger antenna equates to a higher spatial resolution on the ground.
Typically, the size of an antenna is limited by the size of the launcher fairing. However, this limitation can be overcome by designing an antenna that can be folded compactly for its time in the fairing during launch and which can then be unfurled to its full size once in space. At the same time, the antenna weight must light and, when fully deployed, the antenna surface must be in the correct shape, stabile and accurate.
Over the last ten years, ESA has initiated a number of activities to develop LDR antenna technology in Europe. When, upon request of the European Union, CIMR was included among the new Sentinels to be developed for Copernicus, an instrument pre-development activity was started to build a full-size engineering model of the reflector for the CIMR microwave instrument.
Under the responsibility of the ESA Φ-Department, a consortium of companies, which was selected competitively in January 2019 to carry out this development, has been working hard to achieve this goal. The consortium is led by HPS GmbH, and LSS GmbH in Munich, Germany.
In May 2021, the consortium reached a very important milestone by demonstrating the automatic motorised deployment of the eight-metre CIMR reflector engineering model at the LSS GmbH facilities. The consortium also developed and successfully tested an engineering model of a deployable arm to hold the LDR on the CIMR satellite.
Alexander Ihle, Structural Engineer at ESA, said: “The deployment test of such a large and complex structure is one of the most challenging tests in the verification campaign of a deployable reflector. It is also a key test that will be repeated multiple times throughout the overall mechanical test campaign. The next tests the reflector will be subjected to aim to verify that it will also survive the stresses of the launch and the harsh space environment. To name a few, the reflector will be tested at INTA in Spain for accelerations of up to 20 times Earth’s g gravity acceleration, temperature swings between –150 and +150 degree Celsius and partial deployments under vacuum. After each of these tests, we will repeat a full deployment of the reflector and inspect it thoroughly to make sure it is mechanically fully functional.”
Jean-Christophe Angevain, Microwave Instrument Engineer at ESA, added: “This first successful deployment of the LDR engineering model developed for the CIMR mission is considered as a major achievement by ESA since it validates the many development steps performed in the last ten years in Europe in different technological areas that were needed for the European LDR technology maturation. It shows that the selected reflector concept is highly scalable and can be designed for large aperture and/or high frequency operation. It also proves that the reflector deployment is robust and reliable, despite the high complexity of such a product.”
The CIMR mission will use a parabolic reflector antenna with a projected aperture diameter of 7.4 m that rotates at 7.8 revolutions per minute. With this antenna, the CIMR satellite will be able to observe sea-ice concentration at a spatial resolution of ≤ 5 km and sea-surface temperature at a spatial resolution of ≤ 15 km over a swath width of 1900 km to achieve frequent observation revisits. The CIMR instrument will measure the brightness temperature of Earth’s surface at 1.4, 6.9, 10.6, 18.7 and 36.5 GHz and at different polarisations.
Craig Donlon, ESA CIMR Mission Scientist, explained: “The CIMR mission is a game changer for Copernicus services and Earth observation in general. It will provide unprecedented spatial resolution and coverage at low frequencies that is required to monitor, operationally, climate change in the Arctic cryosphere, ocean, surrounding land and in the atmosphere. The LDR lies at the very heart of the mission and is a technological quantum leap for the European space sector, not only bringing CIMR to life, but paving the way for new LDR-enabled mission concepts in the future”.
In the coming months the LDR will undergo a comprehensive test campaign at INTA in Madrid, where it will be subject to the environmental conditions that are expected during launch and operation in space. The instrument pre-development activity will finish with the completion of a full qualification test campaign later this year.
Full list of consortium companies
HPS GmbH as prime contractor together with LSS GmbH, Ruag Space Germany GmbH, TICRA, vH&S -von Hoerner & Sulger GmbH, Frezite High Performance Lda, Luma Metal AB, INEGI – Institute of Science and Innovation in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (RTO), HPS Inovatie si Dezvoltare S.R.L., INTA – National Institute for Aerospace Technology, Airbus Defence & Space GmbH, INVENT GmbH as subcontractors.
