Prototype L4 autonomous truck co-developed by Pony.ai and SANY (Photo: Business Wire)
Prototype L4 autonomous truck co-developed by Pony.ai and SANY (Photo: Business Wire)
Pony.ai, a leading global autonomous driving technology company, today announced a strategic joint venture with SANY Heavy Truck (SANY), a subsidiary of SANY Heavy Industry, China’s number one heavy equipment manufacturer and the third largest heavy equipment manufacturer globally.
Pony.ai and SANY will collaborate to create a world-leading autonomous truck brand. The two companies will deeply integrate Pony.ai’s “virtual driver” with SANY’s technical accumulation in the field of wire-controlled chassis and vehicle development to jointly develop high-end heavy trucks that are automotive-grade and have L4-class redundancies. These trucks will inaugurate the future of truck logistics transportation.
The joint venture plans to start small-scale deliveries of the robotrucks in 2022 and 2023. Mass production of the L4 truck will commence in 2024 and within a few years will reach an annual production of around 10,000 trucks.
The first prototype of the autonomous truck was built on SANY’s new EV truck platform and has already conducted road testing. The JV’s autonomous truck product portfolio will include a mix of new energy vehicles (NEVs) and fuel-based, with the aim to increase the proportion of NEV trucks in the future.
The addressable market for trucking is substantial; in 2021 alone, heavy truck sales in China exceeded 1.3 million units. Once mass production is achieved, the partners expect the penetration rate of L4 trucks in China’s heavy truck market to increase steadily.
“SANY has industry-leading heavy truck manufacturing technology and is pioneering the architecture of ‘new energy’ heavy trucks, intelligent network connections, and other key areas,” said James Peng, Pony.ai’s co-founder and CEO. “Integrating Pony.ai’s core autonomous driving technologies with the capabilities of SANY enables our joint venture to create a successful intelligent truck and logistics ecosystem for L4 autonomous trucking.”
“This partnership between SANY and Pony.ai is the ultimate collaboration between truck ‘body’ and truck ‘brain’ and thus makes it possible to mass produce high-level autonomous trucks. This partnership, which features complementary strengths and competitive advantages, will advance autonomous trucking and logistics well into the future and will lead to a safer, more efficient, intelligent logistics system,” said Liang Linhe, Chairman of SANY Heavy Truck.
Pony.ai has always been committed to developing autonomous driving software and hardware solutions in-house. In June, Pony.ai released its autonomous driving controller (ADC) designed for automotive-grade mass production. The ADC is built on the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin system-on-chip and will fully enable the trucks produced by the joint venture.
“The establishment of this new venture between Pony.ai and SANY is a significant milestone for the trucking industry,” said Rishi Dhall, vice president of Automotive, NVIDIA. “Powered by NVIDIA DRIVE, this next-generation of new-energy autonomous trucks will enable the delivery of goods to address ever-growing e-commerce demands without compromising safety and reliability — while reducing the transportation industry’s dependence on fossil fuels.”
Telit, a global leader in the Internet of Things (IoT), and Thales (Euronext Paris: HO), a global leader in Aerospace, Defense, Security & Digital Identity, today jointly announced they have entered into an agreement under which Telit intends to acquire Thales’ cellular IoT products. The intended transaction includes Thales’ portfolio of cellular wireless communication modules, gateways, and data (modem) cards, ranging from 4G LTE, LPWAN to 5G.
The intended transaction establishes California-based Telit Cinterion, as a leading Western provider of IoT solutions, expanding the company’s presence in growing industrial IoT segments and end markets including payment systems, energy, e-health, and security. It also enhances the company’s ability to respond more expertly to growing demand for cybersecure IoT solutions in modules and cellular connectivity, thanks to leading technologies from Thales.
Paolo Dal Pino, Telit’s CEO, remarked: “Innovation, scale and efficient IoT solutions are key for success. This transaction with Thales is arguably the most impactful one for Telit competitiveness. While it will boost our ability to address customer needs more precisely from a richer portfolio, it will also enable us to deliver all new offerings derived from the experience, expertise, and the DNA of two companies that have made security and quality part of their brand promise from the very beginning.”
Philippe Vallée, Thales’s EVP Digital Identity and Security, added: “The Thales and Telit combination brings together complementary strengths. The business will provide a unique value proposition in a highly competitive global IoT market and will allow Thales to focus its investments on its three core activities in aerospace, defence and security and digital identity and security. The new combination will rely on a unique set of expertise brought by Thales and Telit employees. It will also benefit from leveraging both companies’ strong and complementary product portfolio and Thales’s experience in cellular connectivity.”
A Conversation with Pawan Goenka
Chairman, IN-SPACe
IN-SPACe is an independent nodal agency under the Department of Space for allowing space activities and usage of DoS owned facilities by non-government private entities. The headquarters of the agency, located in Ahmedabad, was inaugurated on June 10, 2022, and a closed-door meeting held between IN-SPACe and several entrepreneurs on June 11, 2022. On this occasion, in an exclusive interview, Pawan Kumar Goenka, Chairperson of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Board, IN-SPACe, spoke with Arup Dasgupta, Managing Editor, Geospatial World, about IN-SPACEe and how it will enable a level-playing field for private companies and start-ups in the Indian Space sector.
What are the takeaways from the 11th June meeting?
The meeting was held with almost 100+ people from the industry, both vendors as well as new space technology companies. Everyone was very excited with the previous day’s event because it was clear that, at the Prime Ministerial level, there is a tremendous desire to see industry enter the Space sector in a much bigger way than before. The PM clearly mentioned that he did not want to see the industry only as vendors but as leaders in Space development, and that he is looking for Space activities to go far with the backbone of industry participation.
Space Policy 2022
The industry is very keen to know when the Space Policy, which has been in the making for quite some time, will be released. We have had several consultations with industry so there are not too many concerns, barring one or two new questions. Most of the heavy lifting has been done, such as, approvals from the various concerned departments. The final compilation of all suggestions and comments is going on, so it shouldn’t be too long before the Policy is announced.
Role of IN-SPACe
IN-SPACe will play a major role by creating confidence in the industry that the government is serious about them entering this domain. The government is very open to sharing its infrastructure and technology with the industry. The regulatory environment defined in the Policy, and its implementation by IN-SPACe, is conducive to private sector participation and will provide a level playing field to the industry.
We have to convince the industry through our actions that we mean business. We are very serious about the private sector coming into Space and playing a lead role, along with ISRO. Private sector start-ups are bringing in their sweat equity in the form of knowledge, aspirations, and an ability to take risks.
Role of ISRO
We have to convince the industry through our actions that we mean business. We are very serious about the private sector coming into Space and playing a lead role, along with ISRO. But, at the same time, as the Prime Minister mentioned, it is very important that nobody should feel that ISRO is now sidelined and the private sector can move forward alone. ISRO is still at the core of whatever happens in the Space sector. The industry will clearly be getting the benefit of and access to the technology that has been developed by ISRO over 50-60 years.
Private investment
Right now, we want to see how the private sector can become interested in participating in Space. Private sector start-ups are bringing in their sweat equity in the form of knowledge, aspirations, and an ability to take risks. Private equity firms and venture capitalist firms, however, have not yet warmed up to investing in Space in India. They need to see success stories. We have to signed 10 MoUs with industry for projects and all these projects will be executed and completed in the next eight to ten months. This will demonstrate to investors the potential return on investment.
Government as an investor
In terms of direct funds and support from the government, we have not so far made any formal policy. We are going to keep looking at it as things develop. Right now, we are not even at a point where the industry can ask for a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. PLI comes in when we have a manufacturing industry in the country that is not cost-competitive globally and, therefore, the government shares some of the cost burden. There are hardly one or two companies that are planning to make satellites for global application; they’re not saying that they won’t be able to do so because the costs are too high. India has an inherent advantage because manufacturing costs here are lower compared to the US or Europe.
Creating a fund for Space investment, which will come from the Government of India Fund, is something that we can look at in the future. Right now, if some industry comes to us and says, ‘Look, I’m not able to do something because I don’t have funds’ or ‘I’m not able to compete in the global market because my costs are too high’, then we can think about funding, and about PLI. Right now, that’s not the request; right now it is “I have a technology, which I need to demonstrate, so help me demonstrate it”.
PM Modi inaugurates Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) headquarters in Ahmedabad
Immediate focus
So you are only at the demonstration stage right now and not looking to scale up further?
Yes. Right now, the entire focus is on putting a system in place for how ISRO gets involved in terms of the use of facilities by the private sector, how ISRO gets involved in hand-holding, how IN-SPACe develops its own expertise to be able to help the industry, and what kind of authorizing process do we put in place. Don’t forget that IN-SPACe is also a regulator. This is where the focus will be for the next 12 months.
Interplay of ISRO, NSIL and IN-SPACe
IN-SPACe is an autonomous body under the Department of Space (DoS). NSIL is a commercial arm of DoS, and ISRO is the technology developer and owner of all the infrastructure. The role of IN-SPACe is to provide all the facilities, technology, and authorization to industry, through liaison with ISRO.
When NSIL was formed (in 2019), there was a sharing of responsibilities between ISRO and NSIL. Although IN-SPACe was announced two years ago, its actual operations started only in April. As we evolve we need to make sure that we do the right thing from the viewpoint of the government and the industry.
NSIL is the commercial arm of DoS. If company X plans to launch a satellite using ISRO facilities, authorization is done by IN-SPACe. The actual launch is handled by NSIL; they will execute a commercial agreement with the company to manage that launch. On the other hand, if the industry makes its own arrangements, NSIL is not involved. Technology transfer will happen through NSIL. IN-SPACe’s role is to facilitate the transfer of technology ISRO is providing and NSIL is transferring. In our minds, we are 95% clear about our roles but people outside are probably only 70% to 75% clear.
The Government has recently transferred ten of the INSAT satellites to NSIL who will market their transponders. ISRO’s Master Control Facility is managing these satellites. How will NSIL compensate ISRO for the use of those facilities?
That’s outside my sphere so I don’t think I should comment on it. I’m not even fully aware of it because this is between ISRO and NSIL. IN-SPACe has no involvement in that.
Satellite data policy
Indian satellite data is very useful for the purpose of applications but is expensive. Most industry people don’t use this data. They use freely available data from Landsat and Sentinel.
Policy will fix that. We are defining three layers. In one layer, data is available for free, in the second layer data is available freely but for a cost, and in the third layer it is available only if approved by the concerned authorities.
The policy says data greater than or equal to 0.5 meters is free.
No, it is 0.3 meters. This was the input that came to us from the industry interaction, and we made it 0.3 meters.
The National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) is a canalization institution for data from foreign data suppliers like Maxar and Planet. An Indian entity wanting to buy such data has to put in a request to NRSC, which, in turn, does the procurement and passes it on to the entity. What will be the procedure under the new policy?
I’m not very familiar with this. What you’re asking is why do they need to go through NRSC? I will make a note of this and see if the current process can continue or whether we need to simplify the process.
Have the Geospatial Guidelines, which were issued in February 2021, been reflected in the Space Policy?
The Space Policy is fully compliant with whatever is in the geospatial policy. The data you collect from Space is wide ranging and you need to be careful that in the process of freeing it up you don’t compromise on the security aspects. One could say that it is impossible to stop anybody from collecting data but we can stop dissemination of the data where we think it’ll come in the way of security.
But are we allowed to freely use the data? That’s where we have to be a little careful. All I can say right now is that since the geospatial guidelines have preceded the Space Policy, the Space Policy has to fully align with them. If they have raised the bar higher, then we cannot be lower. Of that we are sure.
Space Policy, Space Act,
and Decadal Plan
Decadal Plan is basically a strategy that ISRO and IN-SPACe are working on. We are a seven billion dollar (Rs. 557 billion) economy today. In ten years, where should we be? If we just say let’s become bigger, that’s not a target. To say let’s become a 70 billion dollar (Rs. 5.5 trillion) economy without thinking as to how, is also just kite flying. So a Decadal Plan will say where we want to be 10 years from now. And how do we get there.
What are the areas that we will work on? What are the low hanging fruits? What are the early harvests? That’s the strategy that we are working on at IN-SPACe and ISRO together; this has nothing to do with the Government of India, per se.
Space Policy is something you are familiar with. That’s the one that will get released quickly, and that’s what will guide the Act of IN-SPACe in terms of how we authorize, what we authorize, what we can do, what we cannot do, and so on. The Space Policy is approved by the Cabinet.
The Space Act will be approved by the Parliament. Even I didn’t know of this distinction till I came into this role. The Act will address a few other things beyond the Policy, because those have to be approved by the Parliament, not the Cabinet. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, for example, is one such body.
If there is a Space Act, will there also be a Geospatial Act? There is a lot of overlap between the two.
I don’t know because that is handled by a different ministry. Therefore, coordination is definitely required between the two. There is no equivalent of IN-SPACe in the Department of Science and Technology. IN-SPACe is special. So I think the Act is required because of this.
I’m not very familiar with these things since I am from the private sector, but I think it’s because the Act gets into what can and cannot be done. For example, what are the liabilities? Policy does not talk about liability. What are the consequences of something that is not aligned to the Policy? All these things come under the Act.
About international commitments and Space Policy
Obviously, the Policy ensures that nothing in it is in contradiction with the international treaties we have signed. And IN-SPACe, while giving approvals, will have to ensure that we do not violate any international treaty. For example, the liability for any damage done in Space lies with the country, not the company.
Therefore, if the country is liable for a company’s actions, how does IN-SPACe pass on that liability to the company? Between the Policy and Act that’ll get resolved.
Legal Directorate
Are you thinking in terms of having a director for legal affairs?
Yes. It’s not a directorate per se, right now. We have legal affairs. We have three directors and legal, finance and administration together as a unit. In the original Cabinet Note, there is mention of a Legal Directorate.
I have put that on hold because we don’t have enough activities in that area. Once we build ourselves up to a level where we need a Legal Directorate, we have the approval for it.
Many companies today are struggling with a host of challenges. From trying to provide engaging and personalized customer experiences, that make customers come back and buy more products, to trying to achieve higher levels of operational efficiencies that help in maintaining profit margins in today’s exceedingly competitive market, the complexities are aplenty.
If wondering how can these issues be addressed, the answer lies in geospatial data, and the amplification provided by enabling technology such as communications, cloud, analytics, mobile, etc.
Garnering deeper data-driven insights into consumer demographics and preferences, in conjunction with mapping and geospatial data can enable companies to optimize their operations so as to better address the customer’s needs, which include pricing, products as well as service delivery.
When it comes to the real estate market there is immense pressure to unlock the potential of location data and incorporate machine learning along with evidence-based approaches in workflows.
In the current fiercely competitive environment, the real estate market has to rely on the efficient location of profitable sites, matching of tenants to available properties, market expansion and contraction for commercial real estate, keeping track of changing consumer tastes and also competition.
Lack of data availability can make it extremely difficult to assess whether a high-end real estate property is going to be profitable and experience footfall. This implies that without human mobility data, any applied approach would lack precision and could lead to unreliable findings which ultimately result in significant business losses.
How Human Mobility Data Works?
Generally, human mobility data can provide insights on the number of people visiting a grid cell covering the entire concerned territory. With the anonymized, aggregated and extrapolated data measured in the network, insights can be gained that represent the overall population. In addition to this, the data that is generated can provide insights into the origins of the visitors that are aggregated at different levels in accordance with the distance to the destinations cell. This means that visits can be aggregated at the municipality level, helping distinguish between visitors that are visiting from various areas and the native population.
The collected data can be aggregated by the type of activity at the origin, which helps in delineating between whether it’s home or work, the day of the week or even the time of the day and also socio-demographic variables such as age, gender, economic status – all of which are very important to consider when it comes to high-end real estate.
By disaggregating the collected data among other variables, a lot of flexibility can be achieved depending upon the sector or use case and can be used for building tailored high-end real estate projects. Having access to detailed granularity aids in garnering powerful business insights, which means that any real estate firm utilising human mobility data, can provide more details to potential investors.
Apart from this, socio-demographic variables can help focus on a target customer profile which is where high-end retail draws most of its business from – ultimately crucial to their success.
Targeting audiences quickly and efficiently with the help of in-depth market research and human mobility data can help in determining the perfect demographic.
This, in turn, can help in building custom territories and also sending marketing materials to where the highest density of qualified target audience resides. As an investor, you can save a lot on marketing costs while also gaining an edge in producing profitable marketing campaigns that can give you a measurable ROI.
While looking at visualizing points of interest data near any potential real estate investment opportunity, gives a basic understanding of the area at hand and its possible audience, it will not give definitive insights regarding the potential footfall and traffic that can have a major impact on the location.
This is precisely why human mobility data is necessary as it can give a much deeper understanding of visitor patterns. The data generated hence can help in predicting sales for commercial real estate investment or if you’re looking at it from the point of view of investors for multiple tenant properties it can help in understanding the desirability of the high-value investment.
Successful real estate companies must today realize the opportunities that arise from detailed understanding of insights of areas and mobility patterns.
Using advanced location-based intelligence services, and human mobility data, real estate professionals can gain a competitive edge when it comes to showcasing high-end properties to prospective buyers or investors. As the real estate industry continues to become more advanced and data-driven, location-based technology becomes the driving force behind any new trend.
Thus, human mobility data becomes essential for providing insights that can aid in targeting the right audience generating lucrative business for high-end real estate, without which any real estate market analysis would be incomplete.
Spire Global, Inc., a leading global provider of space-based data, analytics and space services, today announced that it has been awarded a Commercial Weather Data Pilot (CWDP) space weather contract as part of the Commercial Data Program (CDP) issued by the National Oceanographic and Oceanic Administration (NOAA). Spire will provide near real-time radio occultation (RO) data for NOAA’s space weather forecast models to measure ionospheric conditions that impact activities such as aviation, satellite operations, navigation, and communications.
“NOAA’s focus on space weather data has allowed commercial providers opportunities to showcase the growing quality and impact their data can have on ionospheric weather models and applications,” said Chuck Cash, Vice President of Federal Sales, Spire. “Spire is honored to continue working with NOAA to provide radio occultation measurements that will help NOAA meet its objectives and ultimately safeguard society.”
The award, valued at $1.7 million, represents Spire’s continued ability to provide high quality commercial data for NOAA’s weather forecast models. NOAA’s CWDP studies using Spire’s data are expected to last 12 months.
Spire has provided data to NOAA since 2016, demonstrating the value of commercial satellite data in weather forecasting models. Earlier this year, NOAA awarded Spire an $8 million contract to increase the number of RO profiles it provides from 3,000 to 5,500 for use in operational weather forecasts. The award represented the single largest U.S. government purchase of commercial, operational RO data.
CGI announces CGI Sense360, its cloud-based, smart analytics platform that gives emergency responders holistic and accurate situational awareness in the event of a disaster.
Using comprehensive data sources and augmented reality, the platform creates a visual situation overview that helps organizations more efficiently organize and accelerate rescue operations.
Whether a disaster is caused by natural or human hazards, up-to-date information is critical to safe and successful rescue efforts. CGI Sense360 creates a holistic picture of a disaster using data from a variety of sources across the ecosystem, such as satellites, drones and maps; infrastructure, geospatial, weather and environmental data; and online databases, blogs and social media.
The platform’s integrated and secure communications system combines augmented reality, situational images and other data to create a visual overview that is shared with emergency responders in a context-aware manner to enable faster, safer rescue operations.
International aid organization I.S.A.R. (International Search and Rescue) inGermanyis a project partner in the design and development of CGI Sense360. I.S.A.R. is certified by the United Nations for international rescue operations.
“We provide international assistance in humanitarian missions; for example, after natural disasters and accidents or in war zones,” says Dr.Steven Bayer, Project Coordinator at I.S.A.R. “The immediate availability of detailed situation images and current data is crucial for efficient, rapid rescue measures. And, it is precisely this information that the new cloud-based data analytics platform CGI Sense360 can provide.”
Development of the platform also is supported by the European Space Agency (ESA). CGI space experts have worked closely with the ESA for about 40 years, including in Bochum and Darmstadt,Germany. CGI’s current projects include the development of a centralized “pooling and sharing” system for secure satellite communications services.
“In rescue operations, analog processes still dominate in many cases,” notesStefan Wichert, Senior Vice President of CGI’s operations inNorthern Germany. “However, an exact situation picture and an unrestricted flow of information are indispensable in the event of a crisis or disaster.
In addition, the time factor is important. With CGI Sense360, we offer a high-performance, intelligent and secure platform that meets these criteria. It delivers all the information needed for time-critical coordination and relief operations in near real-time. We see a very large market potential for our new platform, which takes the benefits of digitalization a decisive step forward.”
The recently releasedfirst images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed new views of the cosmos in exquisite, never-before-seen detail. Webb’s image covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground – and reveals thousands of galaxies in a tiny sliver of the vast universe.
The image reveals the depths of the universe and is a window through time. The very faintest, smallest blips of light in these photos are images of galaxies as they existed more than 13 billion years ago, near the very beginning of time. The telescope has not only allowed us to glimpse into the past but will also help answer gaping questions from how galaxies evolved to the composition of exoplanet atmospheres.
According to NASA “Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it.”
However, while the JWST will enable us to look into the past and enlighten us about the origins of the universe, our future on this planet remains uncertain. With rising global temperatures, the past few decades have observed a marked aggregation in the propensity and intensity of extreme climatic events.
Climate change has emerged as one of the most critical problems of our age, and the solution to this problem requires a lens into the future. The developments and innovations in remote sensing technology have allowed satellites to serve as this lens and prove instrumental in helping solve climate change.
Satellite Data and Climate Change
The role of satellite data in the continuous monitoring and measuring of climate change is identical to the role of the JWST in monitoring the depths of the universe.
In fact, according to the Global Climate Observing System, more than 50% ofEssential Climate Variables, which are key indicators of the earth’s changing climate, can only be tracked via satellites.
For instance, the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s)Climate Change Initiative generates reliable and long-term data for 21Essential Climate Variables. This wide array of satellite data helps identify our vulnerability to climate change by monitoring and predicting extreme climatic events, such as floods, wildfires, droughts, heatwaves and melting of glaciers, among others.
Assessing Climate Indicators
To mitigate and manage the growing threat of extreme climatic events to various aspects of our society and businesses, data-backed climate intelligence is becoming crucial.
As most climate variables can only be monitored by space, satellites provide a wealth of valuable information to understand the drivers and impact of climate change. Currently, there are around162 satellites in orbit that are continuously monitoring various climate variables. Some of the climate variables that can be continuously monitored by satellites are as follows:
Wildfires
There has been a sharp rise in the occurrence and intensity of wildfires in recent years. As wildfires are closely associated with climate change, they tend to reinforce each other. Accordingly, as the climate crisis worsens, monitoring fires could play a huge role in minimizing risks.
Satellites in this regard have emerged as an effective monitoring tool that make it possible to observe extensive areas in real-time. Data from satellites also provide valuable insights into wildfire behaviour, such as patterns and likely courses. This along with otheressential information such as vegetation in the region, weather conditions that instigate fires, etc can help in creating maps of potential fire hotspots and even help in predicting fires.
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions increase the heat in the atmosphere, which leads to global warming. As long as emissions continue, global temperature will also continue to rise. Thus, monitoring and mapping GHG emissions is crucial in developing strategies to reduce them. Satellite data in this regard plays a prominent role as it has the ability to pinpoint emissions.
In 2009, Japan launched the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT), the world’s first satellite to monitor greenhouse gases. Since then, several more sophisticated satellites have been launched for the same purpose. At present, the Copernicus Sentinel-5P, launched in 2018 by the European Space Agency (ESA), is known to be the most advanced pollution monitoring satellite in the world. More recently, in 2021, ESA announced their new space mission, which will be able to track human-caused GHG emissions from space.
Climate change is causing floods to become increasingly intense and frequent. Accordingly, credible data is of utmost importance as it can help in mapping and managing floods and potentially even accurately predicting them. Owing to its vantage point, satellites provide information on the global occurrence and footprint of floods in near real-time. It also helps in understanding the scale and extent of flooding. For example, researchers used NASA’s TOPEX/Poseidon satellite and ESA’s ENVISAT satellite to calculate the height and extent of flooding in various regions.
Satellite imageries are also helpful in creating predictive models that could help in tentatively forecasting floods. Here, satellites use weather patterns to calculate the tentative amount of rain each area might receive. Spatial images of the ground also enable the calculation of the water retention capacity of the ground.
In addition, NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite provides scientists with insights into the amount of moisture content in the soil. This is a key factor which helps in estimating the chances of the occurrence of floods. These crucial bits of information cumulatively help in developing flood risk maps. This further helps authorities to predict floods and be better prepared to manage them.
Satellites help monitor the 2019 Arkansas River floods. Source: NASA Landsat 8
Droughts
Climate change is causing droughts to become more frequent and severe. As the impact is far-reaching, ranging from affecting water quality, public health, economy and public infrastructure, among others, monitoring and predicting droughts has become vital in managing the crisis. Satellites can play an important role in predicting droughts. They do this by measuring radiation, which helps in accurately measuring soil moisture levels.
This provides beneficial insights into weather conditions. For example, if satellite measurements find that soil is getting increasingly wet, it may indicate that a flood is imminent.
Likewise, if it finds the moisture content in soil drying up, it could be an indicator of a potential drought. For instance, the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) on board EUMETSAT’s polar-orbiting Metop satellites measure moisture content in the soil, among other things.
Remote sensing also tracks factors such as weather patterns and wind speed which influence weather conditions such as droughts. In addition, satellites also help in assessing the impact of droughts on vegetation. The satellite-based Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) in this regard helps in assessing the impact of droughts.
Additionally, it is essential to monitor various surface water bodies continuously for effective and sustainable water management and preempting droughts. For instance, water levels of lakes going down may indicate the first signs of impending droughts.
Satellite image captures the shrinking of Lake Milh in Iraq over the past two decades. The red outline showcased the lake in 2000, and the blue outline showcases the lake in its current state Source: Google Earth Engine
Deforestation
Deforestation is one of the most pressing challenges we face today, as the world’s tropical rainforests were estimated in 2019 to disappear at the rate of one football pitch every six seconds. Deforestation and land degradation act as a double-edged sword as they not only rob the world of naturally occurring carbon sinks but also result in the release of the stored carbon back into the atmosphere.
The severity of this problem was highlighted in 2021 when scientists alarmingly confirmed for the first time that the Amazon rainforest emitted more carbon dioxide than it was able to absorb (close to 1 billion tonnes) primarily due to deforestation, fires, degradation, etc. As the crisis worsens, monitoring deforestation has become extremely vital.
With traditional methods such as forest guards having been found to be expensive and time-consuming, satellite data has revolutionized the monitoring of deforestation with high-resolution data.
Satellites in this regard present imageries of earth on a daily basis which help in mapping deforested areas over a period of time and in identifying hotspots.
In fact, a new study has found that satellites are helping in reducing deforestation. Earth-orbiting satellites were found helpful in bringing down deforestation by 18% over two years in 22 African countries.
The countries took the help of systems that used up-to-date satellite data to send out alerts regarding decreases in forest cover in the tropics. Similarly, the Brazilian government established a data-collection system called PRODES, which uses high-resolution data from Landsat 5 and 7 satellites to monitor and map deforestation.
Satellite data shows forest loss in the Amazon basin between 2001 to 2020. Source: ESA
What does the future hold?
Satellite data has inevitably emerged at the forefront of climate action and the climate intelligence landscape. It not only addresses the shortcomings of traditional monitoring tools such as IoT monitors, forest guards, etc., but rapid technological expansion has also enabled it to provide unique and precise solutions to various challenges.
For example, a major limitation of optical satellites was the lack of clarity due to obscurement by clouds and darkness in mountainous regions. New radars developed can surpass these limitations. New generation satellites also have enhanced optical and temporal resolutions that have improved climate modelling and have capabilities to obtain real-time details.
The expansion of technology and innovation in the field thus holds tremendous promise. New satellite missions such as Eumetsat’s second-generation polar-orbiting satellites and third-generation Meteosats are expected to have immense value in the coming years.
With several path-breaking space 2.0 systems due to be launched in the coming years, clubbed with innovations in artificial intelligence and IoT, the scope of space-based technologies in transitioning into a more sustainable future is immense.
While geospatial data has emerged as a near-perfect solution to monitoring indicators of climate change, acquiring insights from its raw form is impossible. Before satellite data can be applied to climate mitigation, it needs to be processed.
This is true for any big data and today, less than 1% of global data is analysed. However, this process of extracting relevant insights from terabytes of satellite data comes at a high cost in both expertise and computing infrastructure; a key reason this information is under-utilized for understanding environmental challenges.
Hence, organizations with strong analytical skills and computational capacity will play an important role in this regard in integrating valuable data from various sources and disseminating insights through APIs.
Innovation in this sector would be key to unlocking the true potential of satellite data and successfully solving the climate crisis. After all, the images from the JWST also, are only as good as our understanding of them.
Athenium Analytics, a leader in climate intelligence for insurance carriers, today announced the launch of a new historical tornado data set available through theEsri ArcGIS Marketplace.
This first-of-its-kind offering provides seamless access to 25 years of historical tornado insights, including two-dimensional damage swaths from all confirmed tornadoes in the contiguousUnited Statesbetween 1995 and 2019.
The new Marketplace offering from Athenium Analytics expands its Esri Partner Network (EPN) Bronze partner relationship.
Esri is the global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence and mapping. ArcGIS Marketplace is a curated digital geospatial channel of system-ready apps, content, solutions and professional services for ArcGIS users.
The comprehensive new tornadic data set allows Esri users to integrate high-resolution tornado insights within ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Enterprise and ArcGIS Online to better analyze and predict catastrophic losses.
This listing helps Esri customers expand their access to patented weather-risk insights and satisfy the growing demand for enterprise climate intelligence.
“We’re pleased to welcome Athenium Analytics to Esri’s ArcGIS Marketplace,” saidRobert Laudati, Director of Global Partners and Alliances at Esri. “Athenium brings a decade of risk analytics expertise, including leading-edge weather and climate intelligence solutions that enable public and private organizations to mitigate the risks associated with climate change.”
Launched in April 2020, the Ordnance Survey (OS) Data Hub supports businesses, developers and new and emerging markets and users. It was one of the first outputs from the Geospatial Commissions Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA), which aims at sharing location insights with governments around the world to help them make informed decisions.
With 8,210 developers and 1.2 billion transactions in the last financial year, both the public and private sectors prefer the OS Data Hub for their work now, given the way OS location data is accessed and used.
The evolution of the OS Data Hub has benefited thousands of users of OS data by sorting out issues regarding accessibility, usability and licensing. In addition, the hub has attracted a new influx of developers and organizations, from a range of sectors and markets, to work and innovate with OS data.
API a time savior
The Application Programming Interface (API) not only helps save time but also resources. It allows users to focus on using accurate geospatial data to underpin decisions, gain insight, support public services and drive innovation. Another significant benefit is a reduction in data management overheads removing the need to spend time downloading and managing data.
“In the last year, we have completed five releases, mainly around premium data download functionality for the public sector and our partners. Plus, enhancements for various APIs and other services, such as our error reporting tool. This has significantly enhanced the OS Data Hub’s functionality and experience for customers. In terms of customer adoption, we have nearly doubled the number of users who have signed up to the OS Data Hub,” says Michael Gordon, Strategic Product Manager at Ordnance Survey.
What numbers state
The second year has seen public sector organization sign-ups to the OS Data Hub increase by 96%. There was also a 56.6% increase in partner organizations, and a staggering 114.2% increase in Open Plan users.
“In addition to analyzing discovery to withdrawal, our main focus has been discovery, prototyping, and delivery for the PSGA,” Michael adds.
Tackling COVID-19
In the public sector, OS data played a critical part in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. OS addressing data, via the OS Places API, was vital for accurately delivering over 250 million home testing kits, and supporting test and trace.
Location data was also used to map vulnerable citizens in the community who needed extra support during the lockdown.
For example, Barnsley Council was able to create a local COVID-19 test and trace system and developed a vulnerability index at a household level helped by OS data products.
Startup support
In the private sector, prop-tech organizations such as PropertyData and HomeFinder use OS API’s for better decision making and gaining actionable insights. PropertyData, the UK’s most comprehensive and wide-ranging array of residential property market data and analytics functionality, also use OS Maps API, OS Features API, and OS Places API.
“OS MasterMap is the gold standard for web maps that adds significant value to products,” says the founder Michael Dent.
In the developer space, start-up and Geovation member Paua, which aim to simplify electric charging for business and fleet solutions, recently took part in OS Map and Hack. Using the OS Maps API for their basemap, Paua also used the OS Features API to identify geographic features such as local amenities, including cafes and restaurants that are located at various charging stations.
On this, André Pinho, Co-founder and CTO at Paua Tech who led the hack team, says, “The OS expertise in mapping, combined with the digital tools on offer, enabled us to start demonstrating new features that we will be building into our solutions.”
Sanjay Gupta, Country Head & VP, Google India; Miriam Karthika Daniel, VP – Google Maps Experiences; C P Gurnani, MD & CEO, Tech Mahindra.and Sajid Malik, Managing Director of Genesys International Corporation Limited
Tech Mahindra, a leading provider of digital transformation, consulting, and business re-engineering services and solutions and Google today announced a strategic partnership that licenses street-level imagery to Google toward the launch of their Street View feature in the country. The partnership will leverage output from Tech Mahindra’s ‘Gullyfy’ project done in collaboration with eco-system partners, and is being carried out by Tech Mahindra in accordance with the accuracy thresholds laid out in the geospatial guidelines.
As a part of the partnership, Tech Mahindra will be responsible for GIS processes from data creation, resourcing, insights generation, and the actual collection of the street-level imagery. The GIS framework gathers, manages, analyzes, and maps all types of vital datasets used across sectors and industries for cartography, administration, relational database management, programming, and spatial analytics, among others.
Birendra Sen, Business Head, Business Process Services, Tech Mahindra, said, “Technology is not just the backbone of the global economy, but is also a strategic tool which can turn insights into solutions, uncover trends and predictions, and transform businesses in a sustainable manner. Today, there is an increasing need for technologies that turn insights from GIS (Geographic Information Systems) into ready products that can be utilized by customers. The GIS industry has only grown manifold with time, owing to increased data availability and the development of smart cities all over the world. In line with this, our partnership with Google is another step toward delivering high-quality and immersive mapping experiences to the people of India.”
Over the past few years, Tech Mahindra has partnered with Google in the areas like Google Cloud, Engineering, Content Management, Contact Center Operations, Network Services, etc. to providing benefits to customers all over the world. This collaboration will further strengthen our long-standing partnership with Google.
Miriam Karthika Daniel, VP – Google Maps Experiences, said, “We are pleased to partner with Tech Mahindra, and deeply appreciate their immense efforts toward facilitating the launch of Street View in India. At Google Maps, we have over the past 14 years continued to work on ways to bring helpful, local, and high-quality experiences to people across the nation. This launch is only possible through collaborations with local partners, and we look forward to finding more ways to deliver even more useful features and information on Maps.”
This partnership is in line with Tech Mahindra’s NXT.NOWTM framework, which aims to enhance ‘Human Centric Experience’, and focuses on investing in emerging technologies and solutions that enables digital transformation and meet the evolving needs of the customer.
U.S. Army Soldiers, assigned to 374th Chemical Company took part in a Virtual Battle Simulator 3 (VBS3) at the Virtual Battlespace building on Fort Dix, NJ. Jun. 13th, 2019. VBS3 is a combat simulator that educates soldiers on the importance of communication, teamwork, and reaction to enemy contact. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Luke Baker/Released)
Innovations on Military Side is a Microcosm for What Could Become of the Metaverse, feels Pete Morrison, CCO at BISim
For years, different military programs have worked to combine, “models, simulations, people and real equipment into a common representation of the world.” The US Army has established the STE Cross-Functional Team to develop a “common synthetic environment” for simulations and training.
Pete Morrison, CCO at BISim, believes this military innovation is a microcosm for what could become of the metaverse. “A military metaverse will focus on training, experimentation, and mission rehearsal. The fundamental difference to other commercial metaverses will be that it aims to deliver a high-fidelity digital twin of the real world,” he says.
BISim, or Bohemia Interactive Simulations, has been focused on the ‘under the hood’ of developing the military metaverse, helping different technologies on separate terrain data interact more seamlessly. The company is involved with both the US Army STE and UK MOD SSE, converting its military simulations to run on new scalability architectures. It also provides its flagship products, VBS4 and VBS Blue IG, for trainee interaction within the military metaverses.
Further, BISim’s Mantle Enterprise Terrain Management platform allows developers to import, manage, combine, procedurally enhance and stream high fidelity, geo-specific terrain into military or enterprise metaverses. This new terrain technology is already commercially available and will address some of the roadblocks to the military metaverse by helping move procedural generation onto the cloud.
We caught up with Morrison about how traditionally the military has been using the modelling and simulations as a representation of real life, what is military metaverse and how different it is from a commercial metaverse.
Military programs have for some time now combined models, simulations, people and real equipment into a common representation of the world, for training purposes. Please tell us more about it.
The military uses many different types of simulations, covering land, sea, air and space. Flight simulators, tank simulators, forward air control simulators and many others have been built over the years to provide training in a safe and repeatable manner. It has been possible to integrate these simulators for combined arms training for decades. For example, we may connect a flight simulator with a forward air control simulator so that the ground and air operators can practice working together. While these types of integrations have become commonplace, they have major limitations. For example, it is difficult to represent a dense urban environment in a simulation. Representing more than a few thousand people and vehicle entities is expensive and time-consuming. Additionally, each simulation uses its own format for terrain data, making it challenging to build perfectly correlated terrain. While an integrated federation can certainly work, the military metaverse will deliver greater scale with greater efficiency. This is why the U.S. Army is investing so heavily in programs like STE.
Simulations in STE will run as scalable services on cloud architecture, and they will automatically use all available resources to support the simulation of millions of entities. A central terrain server will host a 1:1 digital twin of Earth, which will stream terrain data to connected simulations as needed. The user interface for building training content will be web-based and use web-native rendering engines like Cesium. STE will replace all legacy U.S. Army simulation programs, meaning that in the future, any U.S. Army simulation will be able to connect to this military metaverse for combined arms or joint training.
You say military innovation is a microcosm for what could become of the metaverse. Could you elaborate?
Ultimately, the military needs a digital twin of the Earth with real-world fidelity and real-world density. Many of the same technologies that apply to commercial metaverses apply to the military metaverse, such as cloud scalability or VR/XR/AR. Military programs like the US Army STE and UK MOD SSE are driving innovation in this area, with a well-defined goal—to better train the service personnel who are charged with protecting us. While we don’t know the timeline for commercial metaverses, the US Army has a clear schedule for STE and is actively funding prototypes to achieve its vision. If the US Army STE is successful, they will be the first to clearly demonstrate that the metaverse is not purely science fiction or marketing from big tech. It will be a real, shared experience delivering tangible benefits.
US Army Soldiers, assigned to 374th Chemical Company took part in a Virtual Battle Simulator 3 (VBS3) at the Virtual Battlespace building on Fort Dix, NJ. Jun. 13th, 2019. VBS3 is a combat simulator that educates soldiers on the importance of communication, teamwork, and reaction to enemy contact. (US Army photo by Pfc. Luke Baker/Released)
So how is military metaverse different from what we envision the commercial metaverse to be?
A military metaverse will focus on training, experimentation, and mission rehearsal. The fundamental difference to other commercial metaverses will be that it aims to deliver a high-fidelity digital twin of the real world. Very few commercial uses will require a digital twin of the entire earth. For example, consumers won’t need their local shopping mall represented in an accurate 3D metaverse. However, for mission rehearsal in a highly sensitive environment, an accurate 3D representation of a target area is vital.
How is the metaverse we are talking about today different from the past virtual worlds we have so far been talking about?
The language around metaverses is a bit confusing since past virtual worlds created for gaming could be considered metaverses. For example, in this article, Josh Liddle of Game Rant argued that the game Second Life is “essentially an example of a metaverse with a centralized authority”.
While Second Life wasn’t intended to change real lives, it still demonstrates many of the concepts present in Meta’s idea for the metaverse, among others. Second Life has built an enduring community of millions who are “living” together in virtual spaces.
I lean more toward a metaverse built upon new cloud architectures with native support for cloud scalability, e.g. SpatialOS or Hadean, for enterprise utility. Cloud architecture will enable more players, AI and a generally more immersive experience. While it could be argued that a metaverse will be better suited to VR than a traditional virtual world, the broad definition of a metaverse doesn’t necessarily demand VR.
These definitions are still evolving. Our current conceptions are heavily influenced by marketing from companies like Meta that want to steer the metaverse conversation toward their own technology. Meta owns Oculus so they want to push their customers in that direction to sell more headsets and keep people within the Meta ecosystem.
The metaverse will not necessarily be a digital twin. While some metaverses will represent the real world to-scale (digital twin), many will not. Even enterprise organizations might want a metaverse with fictional terrain. An “immersive AR/VR experience” is optional. In the military, for example, the benefits of VR over traditional keyboards will need to be substantiated before we buy every soldier a headset.
How far have we traveled in terms of technology in building a metaverse?
The US Army Synthetic Training Environment (STE), followed by UK MOD Single Synthetic Environment (SSE), has traveled the furthest in terms of modern scalability architecture needed to build the metaverse. These programs differ from traditional approaches through their use of web architectures that support scalable entity-level simulation. STE uses One World Terrain to stream correlated terrain from a central repository to all of the services that need it. Both support VR/XR/AR interaction as needed.
For example, the Apache helicopter simulators within STE support XR or AR headsets, but not traditional dome displays. Both strive to represent the real-world complexity of population density and accurate 3D visuals of terrain.
However, military metaverses are expensive. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on building US Army STE prototypes already, and they are still several years from a production contract. I expect we’ll see military metaverses used in daily training by 2030, with the US Army leading the way.
What do you think of the commercial metaverse landscape?
Outside the military, the picture for metaverse development is still unclear. Big players such as Meta and Microsoft are investing billions to figure out how to commercialize their metaverses. Unless a commercial model supporting a single metaverse comes along, in the short term, we’ll see a number of competing “free” metaverses that rely on a traditional ad revenue model.
In parallel, I anticipate a push for Web 3.0 to create a much more open-source leveraging blockchain technology and offering digital ownership of assets in the metaverse. The idea behind Web 3.0 is to not allow a small number of commercial entities to dominate ownership of the web. This idea will need to translate to an open metaverse.
The big winners will obviously be cloud providers like Amazon, Microsoft and Google. The massive investment in VR/XR/AR will continue as headset manufacturers strive to make these head-mounted displays more practical and less stressful to use. With current-gen technology, most people tire of headset use after a few hours, at most. Many startups striving to make blockchain more efficient and useful will appear, then disappear as they are bought out by big technology firms.
Only many years from now will there be business opportunities within the metaverse itself, and these opportunities very much depend on who “wins” the metaverse race—Web 3.0 or the tech giants.
