Month: July 2023

Φ-lab contributes to Earth observation education at ESA-NASA training week

Posted on by nchimonides

The Trans-Atlantic Training course (TAT 2023) took place in the Czech Republic from 27 June to 1 July and included presentations and tutorials from current and past Φ-labbers. Organised by ESA, NASA and the Charles University in Prague, the course was aimed at educating early-career scientists and post-graduate students on remote sensing for environmental monitoring and modelling.

TAT has been running since 2013 with the objective of providing training activities for young scientists in the field of Earth observation (EO), with a particular emphasis on remote sensing of land-cover change and ecosystem dynamics. The forum shares and discusses advanced space research through a series of workshops, with this year’s edition dedicated to Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), passive optical sensing and lidar for forestry, agriculture and hydrology.

Attendees from 18 countries took part and were able to gain a detailed picture of the state of the art in satellite-derived environmental measurement and prediction. The week was split between the cities of Prague and Brno and included insight from a number of global experts in the field.

The expert input included a significant contribution from ESA’s Earth Observation Programme Directorate. Scientific Coordinator Francesco Sarti was part of the TAT organising committee and kicked off Day 1 with an outline of the Agency’s current and forthcoming EO missions. Next was a session introducing Φ-lab and its activities, with talks from Digital Technologies Engineer Bertrand Le Saux, InCubed Officer Albin Lacroix and other Φ-labbers. The session began with a comprehensive overview of how the Explore Office’s research is transforming Earth observation through the application of artificial intelligence, quantum machine learning and other computational methodologies. This was followed by a presentation on the scope, benefits and successes of the ESA InCubed programme.

Day 2 featured a key lecture on applying SAR data time series to forest monitoring. Given by former Φ-lab visiting researcher Daniel Paluba, the workshop was largely based around work carried out at ESA and included two practical sessions, covering topics such as processing Copernicus Sentinel data and comparing Classical and Automatic Machine Learning approaches. This and the other ESA-related presentations were very well-received by the course attendees, with the Φ-lab sessions in particular giving a glimpse into real-world opportunities in EO research and commerce.

“I think it’s crucial that Φ-lab contributes to educational events such as TAT,” Bertrand Le Saux reflects. “Not only is it a pleasure for us to share details of our research and industry support with such an enthusiastic and energetic audience, but I also feel we are helping to plant the seeds for the EO scientists and entrepreneurs of tomorrow.”

To know more: ESA Φ-lab, ESA InCubed, TAT on eo4society, Copernicus Sentinel missions

InCubed co-funded SaferPlaces platform maps aftermath of Emilia-Romagna floods

Posted on by nchimonides

The Italian region of Emilia-Romagna was devastated by severe floods in May 2023, claiming lives and displacing thousands of people, resulting in an estimated €8.8 billion in damages. With the region still grappling with the aftermath, satellites have been instrumental in assessing the damages of the affected areas.

Between 16-18 May 2023, 350 million cubic metres of water, equivalent to six months’ worth of rain, fell within 36 hours across Emilia-Romagna, one of Italy’s most important agricultural regions. The heavy rain led to the overflow of 23 rivers across the region, affecting 100 municipalities and triggering more than 400 landslides, which in turn damaged and closed off hundreds of roads.

Read the full article on www.esa.int.

Φ-lab-WMF AI4EO competition inspires European New-Space start-ups to rise to the challenge

Posted on by nchimonides

At a recent award ceremony, Φ-lab announced the four winners of the AI4EO Call, a competition launched in conjunction with the We Make Future event. The top entries received a range of prizes, including an all-expense-paid trip to the ESA EO Commercialisation Forum in October.

As a seed bed for innovation in commercial Earth observation (EO), ESA Φ-lab actively promotes and encourages ideas from start-ups and entrepreneurs. We Make Future (WMF) is the largest digital and social innovation festival in Southern Europe, and so provides an ideal forum for Φ-lab to interface with today’s and tomorrow’s success stories in the space sector. In fact ESA has enjoyed a major presence at the gathering since 2020, and this year’s edition in Rimini in Italy featured a popular ESA booth with exhibits that included activities, products and mock-ups from Φ-lab. The multitude of visitors to the booth comprised enthusiasts, start-ups and companies among others, with each taking the opportunity to interact with Φ-labbers and other ESA representatives.

A notable attraction at this year’s event was the AI4EO Call, a joint initiative of Φ-lab and the organisers of WMF. The competition concerned applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and data processing in aerospace and EO and aimed to reaffirm the value of these sectors in international development and the protection of our planet. Entries were assessed by a panel consisting of ESA and industry representatives, based on criteria including project feasibility, degree of innovation, competitive positioning and potential for further development.

Sixteen of the start-ups were shortlisted and invited to WMF to pitch their proposals to the panel. At a dedicated ceremony in the ESA booth, Φ-lab AI Ecosystem Manager Sabrina Ricci announced the four winning applications:

  • FlyPix AI, a geospatial platform that extracts insights from satellite and drone imagery, enabling customers to detect and segment objects of interest, identify their characteristics and monitor changes and anomalies over time
  • SaferPlaces, an AI-based digital twin solution that uses satellite and climate data to deliver flood risk intelligence for urban environments
  • Terroir from Space, a service for the wine industry that both detects unexploited planting sites and monitors existing vineyards through AI processing of EO data
  • Latitudo 40, an analysis engine that draws on Deep Learning algorithms to provide customers with satellite-derived information on topics such as land use, carbon sequestration and coastline erosion

The first-prize winners, FlyPix, won a trip to the ESA EO Commercialisation Forum in October, where they will participate at an ideas-pitch session with private investors. Other prizes for the runners-up included access to business and technical coaching on EO and a subscription to the Sentinel Data Hub.

“We’re truly grateful to have had the opportunity to take part in the AI4EO competition at WMF 2023 and were overjoyed to be selected as the winners,” commented FlyPix co-founder Sergey Sukhanov. “Not only did this experience allow us to showcase our progress, but it also provided a platform for networking with other participants and exploring potential collaborations. In addition, the EO Commercialisation Forum will be a fantastic chance for us to present our product to a new audience.”

Head of the Φ-lab Invest Office Michele Castorina was impressed by the competition’s take-up: “There has been a striking response to the AI4EO Call, with an extremely broad range of ideas that amply demonstrate the vigour and continuing growth of European innovation. We’ve also had a great deal of interest shown in the ESA InCubed programme, giving a number of possibilities for future co-funding of EO start-up activities.”

To know more: ESA Φ-lab, ESA InCubed, We Make Future, AI4EO Call, ESA EO Commercialisation Forum

Image courtesy of WMF – WeMakeFuture