The control and surveillance of borders is an essential function of any state which if done efficiently, can lead to a reduction in cross-border crime and illegal migration.

For the last year Astrium, in collaboration with the Greek Border Guard and the Greek Institute for Security Studies, has been studying the feasibility of using space assets to support the surveillance and control of land borders.

Greece controls the part of the external land border of the European Union over which the majority of illegal migrants enter Europe. It also faces challenges with cross-border criminality, particularly on the Greek / Albanian border.

In the IAP feasibility study just completed, it was possible to confirm the usefulness of satellite communications, tracking, and Earth observation techniques as contributors to the control of the Greek border. This included the provision of services to the Border Guards during a short proof of concept demonstration which was conducted during the summer of 2011 on the Greek / Albanian border.

During this proof of concept demonstration techniques for tracking patrols and distributing the information to commanders, the use of satellite communications, and Earth observation techniques were demonstrated. The Earth observation products included reference mapping, hot spot monitoring, and techniques to develop permeability mapping for the border area. These products were distributed to the field locations over satellite communications links.

The feasibility project has now come to an end and Astrium intends to take the concept forward with a follow-on demonstration project in 2012.

The optimisation of freight transport through ports holds interesting challenges for solutions utilising the added value of satellites. Addressing the challenges of freight operators such as the reduction of delays, optimisation of traffic management, and exchange of information have been priority topics at a workshop held in Liverpool on December 15th, 2011, as part of a recently started ESA IAP activity addressing the subject.

The workshop was attended by representatives of the port community of Liverpool including Mersey Maritime, The Mersey Partnership, Peel Ports, JMD Haulage, and Atlantic Container Lines, and representatives from the project teams and ESA.

Following the award of two parallel projects for this activity, representatives from both teams, one led by AIMES and the other by GMV, were given the opportunity to directly discuss the top priority needs and challenges with the users. These needs and challenges will serve as input for specification of an integrated solution and associated services supporting the optimisation of freight transport through ports and meeting the priorities of the port community.

In support of a solution which can be deployed in more international ports, both project teams will also engage with other users and stakeholders in the near future. Furthermore, The Mersey Partnership, Mersey Maritime and users present at the meeting will further engage with users and stakeholders in the Liverpool area and their international partners.

The workshop has provided both teams with an excellent start to identify innovative and sustainable services addressing freight transport through ports and utilising space assets to realise this.

The team led by GMV (ES) further includes Teirlog (ES), BAE (UK), Brimatech (AU) and TeleConsult (AU). The consortium led by AIMES (UK) further consists of Containerport (UK), Avanti (UK), DMCii (UK) and ISL (D).

Selected offshore vessels within EU waters and beyond are now in sight of EU customs officials as an ESA demonstration project, in support to the European Maritime Safety Agency’s Blue Belt pilot project, gets fully underway.

The ESA IAP Demonstration Project (ARTES element 20) led by the prime contractor CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites), with exactEarth Europe and KSAT as sub-contractors, has been delivering SAT-AIS data to EMSA since 20 October 13:00 UTC.

The satellite data will be carefully assessed to ensure it meets end-user and stakeholder requirements. It will also determine whether SAT-AIS services offer added value to the terrestrial AIS data for this type of ship tracking based service.

EMSA initiated the Blue Belt pilot project to promote short sea shipping and assist  EU customs authorities by providing them with additional information about ships, their journey and their cargoes within the EU. A total of 250 voluntary vessels or “blue ships” are being tracked. Customs authorities of EU Member States receive a timely notification report before the arrival of a blue ship to an EU port.

The ESA demonstration project provides a service based on satellite-based AIS data complementing the terrestrial data collected by EMSA. This service detects offshore vessels equipped with AIS tracking devices which are impossible to detect by shore-based systems alone. Knowing the actual vessel journey beyond the coastal region is important to Custom authorities. This can only be achieved by using satellite AIS data.

Bird strikes remain an issue for civil aviation and the “Bird Strikes Risk Reduction for Civil Aviation” IAP feasibility study is currently seeking feedback from the aviation community, and from airports in particular, on a new set of proposed services that might help reduce the risk of bird strikes.

The study is in the process of identifying new satellite-based services that should help to reduce the risk of bird strikes and that could be implemented in the near-term.

To capture user requirements, test demand for those new services, and explore their commercial viability an online survey has been launched, which takes 5-10 minutes to complete, and is open to all aviation stakeholders.

We encourage all stakeholders with an interest in bird strike reduction to complete the survey. Your answers will help to understand the needs of the aviation market and the level of demand for these new services.

Take part in the survey now.

For more details on the survey, please visit Helios Ltd. website, prime contractor of the study or ESA IAP Programme (iap@esa.int). Survey closes 31st of January 2012

IAP is pleased to announce the start-up of the Ambassador Platform for Dual-Use Space-based Services (APDUSS). The Ambassador Platform will be managed by the Office of the Advisor for Aerospace Activities in the Italian Ministry of Defence. The main objective will be to assist the IAP programme in spreading awareness for potential stakeholders in ESA’s IAP programme in the field of dual-use.

The APDUSS platform will address simultaneously the needs of Civilian and Defence users. Integrated space-based services will be explored for fulfilling the goal of dual use, for example, in support of telemedicine and marine safety and security.
The inauguration workshop for the APDUSS platform will take place on 1st February 2012 in the Centre for High Defence Studies (CASD), in Rome.

For more details, please contact:

Massimo Cavaliere
m.cavaliere@cira.it
Tel: 0039 348 736 1322

A dedicated community portal will soon be launched to support the activity of the APDUSS platform.

Limited water resource availability and efficient water management are major global challenges facing policymakers worldwide. In collaboration with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the Dutch company WaterWatch has demonstrated a pre-operational service aimed at tackling these challenges. The GrapeLook project was co-funded by the Department of Agriculture of Western Cape in South Africa and by the ESA Integrated Applications Promotion programme.

In South Africa, water is a critical resource and there is strong competition between the urban, industrial and agriculture sectors. The National Water Act (1998) states that water should be used efficiently and has to be reserved for basic human needs and for protecting aquatic eco-systems first, with agriculture having a lesser priority. However, agriculture remains of high economic importance as it contributes to export, employment and livelihood. The challenge is to increase agricultural production while reducing water consumption.

One of the major sectors in the Western Cape Province of South Africa is the table and wine grape industry. Water productivity or water use efficiency (WUE), defined as crop production divided by the total water consumption, is a vital parameter to assess agricultural performance. To optimise the water use efficiency, one needs information on the crop production and the crop water consumption. The physical process behind crop water consumption is the process of actual evapotranspiration (ET_act).

It is well known that satellite Earth observation can deliver regular maps on physical properties of vegetation. In the GrapeLook project, space based remote sensing algorithms are used to monitor actual evapotranspiration, biomass production and water use efficiency as well, and this is a breakthrough.  The engine of the system relies on a complex modelling scheme which ingests Earth observation data and in situ measurements (left picture). In-situ soil moisture measurements are transferred in real-time to the processing centre thanks to a satellite communication link. 

Once the product is generated by the processing centre, the maps are displayed to the users (farmers and authorities in charge of water management) through a Google Maps based website www.GrapeLook.co.za. A group of demonstration farmers also received forecasts on soil moisture and irrigation water requirements for their farms. The farms of the demonstration farmers have been accurately geo-referenced thanks to GPS surveys (right picture).

Participating grape farmers received training on how to use the information provided by the pre-operational service. During the 2010-2011 grape growing season, they have regularly connected to the website to check the status of their own farms. Their feedback can be summarized as follows.

• GrapeLook is useful to monitor crop water stress, crop growth, and to identify irrigation system malfunctions;
• GrapeLook supports more efficient farm management practices;
• On the medium term, GrapeLook will help reducing labour and input costs, increasing products quality/yield and improving water use efficiency.

The demonstration project also convinced the Department of Agriculture: Western Cape that GrapeLook is a very cost effective tool for improving water use efficiency.

The project was successfully completed in October 2011. It proved that the system concept was mature although a number of improvements are needed for GrapeLook to become a fully operational service in the coming years.

But most important the project showed that the target end-users were supportive of such a service, although very innovative. It will take a few years to strengthen trust and awareness with these user communities. The South-African authorities are aware of this, and are willing to support the prolongation of a freely available GrapeLook service for another season.

Landmines and explosives continue to disrupt lives and kill long after conflict situations have ended. This is the case in tens of countries around the world. The Mine Action community attempts to reduce the number of victims and return land to people for agriculture and everyday life. Together with the user community and space industry ESA is developing new services that meet actual needs in many domains by integrating different satellite applications.

This video showcases the example of Hadzici, an area near Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

To support demining, new services aim to assist the setting of mine action priorities and risk assessment thus also improving demining efficiency. By complementing existing mine action techniques with imagery from Earth Observation and with Satellite Navigation tools, resources can be allocated according to demand and priorities. ESA's Integrated Applications Promotion (IAP) provides the framework for combining existing techniques and space-based systems to formulate a new approach to demining.

he Integrated Applications Promotion programme has recently showcased a number of its activities that contribute to the development of the African continent, at the 62nd edition of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC). The associated papers and presentations are now available for download.

The IAC is the world's premier annual global space conference, and was held in Cape Town from 3-7 October, with the theme "African Astronaissance". It was directly preceded by the 21st UN/IAF Workshop on .Space for Human and Environmental Security. from 30 September to 2 October.

21st UN/IAF Workshop on Space for Human and Environmental Security

This workshop covered four sessions followed by lively plenary discussions: Space and Climate Change, Space for Food and Water, Space for Health and Space for Environment.

The IAP programme participated with the following presentations with topics ranging from e-health and epidemiology via demining to improving literacy in rural areas.

UN/IAF Workshop Presentations 

62nd Edition of the International Astronautical Congress

At the IAC, user and IAP representatives highlighted a number of activities that take place in or have relevance for the African continent.

In the Smallsat session (B4.4), the development of a Satellite-based AIS (Automated Identification System) for vessel tracking was reported that can help e.g. in the identification of hijacked ships.

Integrated application end-to-end solutions were presented in session B5.1. Ms. Annemarie Klaasse from the Grapelook project explained how satellites can help to reduce the water consumption for vineyard irrigation in South Africa. Mr. Neo Modise, a user representative from SASOL Gas in Johannesburg, clearly illustrated the need for improved and more efficient monitoring of pipelines integrity and related threats (PIMSIS project). Mr. Marco Giancarli from the S2BAS project described how satellite navigation, Earth Observation and satellite communication can be used to improve the safety for planes landing at small, underequipped and remote airports. Dr. Michiel Kruijff, technical officer of the VECMAP feasibility study, reported the successful development of a system for disease vector mapping (moquitoes in particular) that is now moving towards pre-operational service demonstration in twelve countries including Benin. Other IAP activities presented covered veterinary epidemiology in Senegal (PREDICT project) and demining assistance service development (SADA project) in which mine action users from e.g. Sudan and Egypt are involved.

In the session for Integrated Application Tools (B5.2), Prof. Dr. Alexander Horsch (Institute for Medical Statistics) stressed the importance of e-Health to save lives and detailed IAP.s newly started programme e-Health for 48 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.  Finally, the presentation of the IRISS project showed how TITAN, a compact integrated system can be fitted retroactively in older trains to make more efficient and effective their tracking and operations and maintenance management.

IAC Abstracts & Presentations

The Applications Business Office of the Integrated Applications Promotion (IAP) department in the Directorate of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications wishes to announce a vacancy for an Internal Research Fellowship with a starting date of 1st January 2012. The Research Fellowship is available for two years, and will be based at Harwell in the UK.

About the European Space Agency and the Integrated Applications Promotion (IAP) programme

The European Space Agency is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver ever more benefits to all the citizens of Europe.

The objective of ESA’s Integrated Applications Promotion (IAP) programme is the development of operational services for a wide range of users through the combination of different systems. By using and integrating different space assets (Satellite Communication, Satellite Navigation, Earth Observation, Manned Space Technologies), improved or new services on a regional, national or European scale can be created. Intrinsic to these new applications is the added value of space and the long-term sustainability of the resulting services. The programme thereby responds to user needs in areas such as health, safety, energy, transport and development.

The main aim of the IAP programme is to identify user and stakeholder communities and to identify, foster and organise user demand (Capacity Building in the Integrated Space Applications domain). This also includes the creation of partnerships with suitable user communities. The Research Fellow will be responsible for stimulating one or more new applications that utilise and integrate different space assets, resulting in new or improved services. In order to carry out his/her function the Research Fellow will work within a dedicated team.

Duties

The Research Fellow will report to the Head of the Applications Business Office and will be responsible for research activities within any of the disciplines of the Integrated Applications Promotion (IAP) programme

The Research Fellow will have as his/her main responsibilities:

• Research in a chosen discipline to assist in the establishment of one or more IAP projects.
• Preparation of new Regional or Thematic application fields.
• Supporting identification of User Communities and their Needs.
• Identification of appropriate Space Capabilities (Satellite Navigation, Telecommunications and Earth Observation).
• Identification of technological gaps, in order to propose future missions and systems.
• Supporting preparation of promotional materials and workshops to federate user communities.

Some examples of ongoing IAP initiatives that the Research Fellow might support include activities on the Arctic; Offshore Renewable Energy; Under-developed Countries; Machine to Machine (M2M) or Internet of Things (IOT); Insurance / Reinsurance; Maritime Safety and Security; Carbon Trading; and Tourism.

Qualifications

Applicants must have recently attained their doctorate or be close to successfully completing such studies in space science, space applications or techniques, or other fields closely connected to space activities in one or more of the target domains for IAP initiatives noted above. This might for instance include Geographical Information Systems, the commercialisation of space technology, or business, commerce and economic analysis.

Applicants for this post should preferably also have significant and sound experience in at least one of the space technologies covered by this position (i.e. in the Telecommunications, Satellite Navigation and Earth Observation sectors), ideally with a specific emphasis on applications.

Other qualifications required by the candidate include:

• Strong analytical, strategic and problem solving skills.
• Creativity and an innovative attitude.
• Good communication, interpersonal and presentation skills.
• Self-motivated and disciplined, with the ability to plan and manage own work.
• Ability to cope under pressure and ensure deadlines are met.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Good organisation skills.
• Results orientated, with a strong drive to deliver.
• Good team player, able to work in a close-knit team and also in an international environment.
• Proficient in all MS Office packages.

The working languages of the Agency are English and French. A good knowledge of English is required for this post.

How to Apply

Please apply via the applicant webpage on the ESA web-site:

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Careers_at_ESA/SEMICLRTJRG_0.html

Please mark your application with “IAP Applications Business Office” in the title, as well as providing a detailed description of your proposed area of research. This must be within one of the specified IAP themes. Applications should be submitted under the “Internal Fellowship Programme”.

Please send your applications for this post by 7th December 2011. Later applications will only be considered if no suitable candidate has been selected.