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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EO-ALERT (Next Generation Satellite Processing Chain for Rapid Civil Alerts)

Teaser

Summary

The EO-ALERT project addresses the problem of the delivery of Earth Observation data products to End Users with a high throughput. This throughput is measured in EO-ALERT as the latency (i.e. time elapsed) between the satellite observation and the moment that the Earth Observation data product is available to the End User on ground. In current civil satellite systems, this latency is at best in the order to 30 minutes to 60 minutes globally, and in many systems is significantly more, in the order of several hours to days. In EO-ALERT, the goal is to reduce this latency down to 1 minute, leading to the provision of Earth Observation data products with very low latency (quasi-real-time). To do this, EO-ALERT proposes the definition and development of the next-generation EO data processing chain, based on a novel flight segment architecture that moves optimised key EO data processing elements from the ground segment to on-board the satellite, with the aim of delivering the EO products to the end user with very low latency (quasi-real-time). In this architecture, priority is given to the generation and transfer of the Earth Observation data products to ground, over the transfer of the basic sensor raw data.

Low latency in the provision of Earth Observation data products is of importance always. It is particularly important in specific scenarios, such as Disaster Monitoring and Civil Security, where the is a need to respond to the observed event as quickly as possible. This can save lives and also serves generally to limit the impact of extreme events on the civil population and infrastructure. The provision of very low latency (quasi-real-time) Earth Observation data products also enables the use of Earth Observation products as part of the operations and monitoring in real time of remote assets, such as off-shore wind farms and pilotless drones. It is expected that, as Earth Observation data products are increasingly provided with very low latency (quasi-real-time), approaching the goal of 1 minute, End Users will include such products in their operations, and applications will grow to exploit this data such that is becomes an intrinsic part of civilians daily lives and operations.

The specific objectives of the EO-ALERT project are:
- Identify and define, based on market needs, an innovative EO data and processing chain for next generation satellites
- Design, develop, prototype to breadboard and verify the next-generation EO data and processing chain key technologies
- Verify the key EO data & processing chain technologies as an integrated chain in the HW bench
- Experimentally validate and evaluate the key technologies as an integrated data and processing chain using EO sensor data acquired for the project
- Position the technologies in the EO market for exploitation in coming European and international EO programs

Work performed

The work performed during the first year of the project covers:
- the definition of the Earth Observation (EO) scenarios, that are used to motivate and define the User requirements on the system
- the definition of the requirements on the next-generation EO data processing chain
- the preliminary design of the next-generation EO data processing chain, including its sub-elements and their unit testing
- the analyses of the feasibility of the next-generation EO data processing chain vs. its requirements
- the presentation of the EO-ALERT project and concept to the EO community

The main results achieved during the first year of the project are:
- two scenarios have been defined to motivate and help define developments in the project, in the maritime ship monitoring and extreme weather scenarios
- the requirements have been closed, both on the EO data processing chain and its individual technologies
- prototypes of the technologies have been developed to demonstrate initial compliance with the preliminary requirements
- the EO data processing chain has been shown to be able to deliver to ground Earth Observation data products with very low latency (in quasi-real-time), with current latencies around 3 minutes and approaching the goal of 1 minute

Final results

The EO-ALERT project is expected to provide the next-generation EO data processing chain that progresses well beyond the state of the art in the throughput of EO data products to the End User. In particular, the proposed flight segment architecture moves optimised key EO data processing elements from the ground segment to on-board the satellite, and is both novel and new. Furthermore, this architecture facilitates the provision of Earth Observation data products with very low latency (quasi-real-time), approaching the goal of 1 minute. This represents a very significant reduction in latency, considering current civil capabilities in the order of 30 minutes to several hours.
The project is expected to finish with a consolidated and proven next-generation EO data processing chain, that can provide Earth Observation data products in under 5 minutes, approaching the goal of 1 minute, and hence with very low latency (in quasi-real-time). As the flight segment architecture will be proven in hardware, using real high resolution EO data, it will be ideally positioned for exploitation in upcoming European satellite missions, both private and public.
The impacts of this new flight segment architecture are expected to be most evident in the short term, in missions where very low latency is a key enabler, such as for Disaster Monitoring and Civil Security. The novel flight segment architecture is also expected to have an impact on missions where classical raw data chain transfer to ground represents a severe bottleneck, such as upcoming constellations of satellites.