Signatures

Signatures Newsletter of the Indian Society of Remote Sensing –Ahmedabad Chapter Volume: 23, No.1 & 2

January - July 2011

Special Issue on Industry Contributions to Remote Sensing Activities

Signatures, Newsletter of the ISRS–AC, Vol. 23, No.1 & 2, Jan-Jul 2011 Remote Sensing Applications - Software & Services

Industry Contributions in International Remote Sensing Activities of Antrix Dr. Murthy Remilla Dy. Director, Business Development (Remote Sensing), Antrix Corporation Limited, ISRO HQ, Bangalore [email protected]

“An Indian farmer standing in his field, opening his mobile, touching few tabs to know the weather information and about the seeds before starting the sowing using precision farming; another farmer, using web-based GIS on his mobile for locating the nearest market for selling his harvest or searching for the best market price”.

hardware/ software developments, supply of components/sub-systems, fabrication/ test/ realization of parts for ground or onboard systems, data reception, data processing, applications on ground support/consultancy etc. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is one of the leading agencies in the field of spaceborne remote sensing with a host of communication and remote sensing satellites in the orbit serving different user needs. The Indian Space Agency, ISRO has a rich heritage in space systems and services and includes an impressive array of remote sensing satellites and their utilisation. India enjoys a leadership position in remote sensing with the largest constellation of state of art remote sensing satellites with versatile capabilities. Antrix Corporation Ltd., the commercial and marketing arm of ISRO reaches the services of ISRO and the Indian Space industry to the global customers. These details are given in the later section.

This may be an imaginary situation today but may soon become a reality. Today, we are already witnessing wonders in our daily life brought in by advances in technologies. The days have gone when people were finding difficulties in locating addresses and directions. Today, web based mapping/GIS services are becoming popular and bringing convenience. No wonder, these technology based services will be converging further in the near future, with the launch and spread of affordable tablet PCs. All these developments are made possible, more with the active role of private industry and end users besides the advancement of technologies. Though the advancements were happening continuously in Information, Communication and space technologies for several decades; reaping their benefits and empowering the people has been a major contribution of the industry through customised solutions and services. When we look at the industry contribution to the remote sensing activities in general, we can make out that today industry is participating in

1. Satellite building/ launching: Traditionally, research and development in space technologies, building/ launching of satellites has been the hallmark of only a few governments across the globe, like India, US, Japan, Europe, China. Today the commercial industry partners like Digital Globe (USA), Geo Eye (USA), Imagesat International (Israel) and SaTRec (South Korea) are some of the fully commercial agencies involved in developing and operating remote 10

Signatures, Newsletter of the ISRS–AC, Vol. 23, No.1 & 2, Jan-Jul 2011 partners who receive, process and distribute IRS imagery are in-turn enabling the growth of industry chain locally for value addition and advanced services.

sensing satellites. Antrix Corporation Limited and Spot Image, though both are part of the governmental systems are promoting remote sensing activities on a commercial basis like members of the industry.

Antrix/ISRO have taken many industry partners as stakeholders in building/realising International Ground Stations (IGS) for receiving IRS data. These industry partners contribute in the development of satellite specific hardware and other ground station related hardware supply to Antrix for establishing these IGSs.

ISRO transfers several technologies to the industries and provides necessary training and hand holding to the licencee with a guaranteed buy back in majority of the cases. ISRO uses the services of several of these technology license holders and other industry partners in fabrication and supply of satellite hardware/subsystems in structures, electronics, optics, power systems, reaction/control mechanisms etc., and also several software activities. Though the design is by ISRO, the development, testing and system level validation are actively carried out by industry partners.

In the field of data processing, Antrix Corporation is liaisoned with the image processing and Photogrammetric software industry for developing advanced products from the IRS data. Specific examples in this area include the role of industry in processing stereo images, digital elevation model and digital surface/terrain modeling etc using Cartosat-1 stereo pairs. The industry contribution in this has been in enabling users of different COTS software packages for using IRS Cartosat-1 data through six levels of stereo processing support. Such an understanding with the industry has enabled IRS readiness of commercial packages like LPS, ENVI, PCI. Many of the Indian Geospatial industry players are successful not only in the Indian market but are making their presence felt globally.

Similarly, Antrix has launched satellites of several international customers on commercial basis using ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). ISRO utilizes the services of several industry partners in the fabrication and supply of subsystems for launch services as per the existing arrangements. 2. Satellite Data Reception and Processing: Antrix Corporation has a network of 22 international ground stations spread across all the continents receiving data from several IRS satellites including Resourcesat-1, Cartosat-1, Cartosat-2 and Oceansat. Out of these 22, half of the stations are owned, operated and managed by private industry partners in those markets. Some of the private industry partners include Euromap, Germany; Beijing Earth Observation, China; EOTec, USA; ScanEx and Sovzond, Russia; Seaspace, USA who are making good business in the market segments and also bringing wider awareness and acceptance for IRS services. These

3. Utilisation in Applications: Remote Sensing, observation of objects and their features without coming into contact has the advantage of providing synoptic, detailed information about the land condition and land use etc., to the user community. For a long period, use of Remote Sensing has been confined to applications like Natural Resources Management, Mapping or Disaster Management mostly by governmental 11

Signatures, Newsletter of the ISRS–AC, Vol. 23, No.1 & 2, Jan-Jul 2011 decision support systems and project implementation/ monitoring activities, Indian Space Research Organisation in collaboration with industry has developed an Integrated GIS and Image Processing Software called IGiS. The collaborator in this effort for ISRO’s Space Applications Centre is an Ahmedabad based private company M/s. Scanpoint Geomatics Limited (SGL). The collaborator has been selected by ISRO for the development of IGiS after considering many offers which include offers from MNCs.

agencies/decision makers. With the improvement in the information content of the images use by private and individuals is expanding in addition to the core group of scientific and government users. Today, information revolution – the combination of required information and its timely delivery is made possible by the active role and involvement of private industry bringing the benefits of the technological advancements to the common man. The kind and level of information being provided is witnessing rapid change and also the demands/expectations by the users is also ever increasing.

The software consists of three key components namely (i) IGiS Desktop software, an integrated suite of advanced GIS and Image Processing tools, (ii) IGiS Geodata Server Gateway, an interface for managing spatial data in a Relational Database management System(RDBMS) and (iii) IGiS Web Applications software, Internet-based GIS for distributing data and services using Map Browser. This package was specifically developed with the heritage of ISRO’s long experience in a variety of applications and also through a carefully chosen industrial collaborative effort. The software is also accompanied by advanced modules including network analysis, terrain analysis, 3D modeling and neural network analysis. The IPR of the product lies jointly with ISRO and Scanpoint whereas, Antrix is supporting the marketing of IGiS package. After an encouraging feedback from several user segments in India, Antrix is planning an international launch of this product for reaching the benefits of integrated and cost effective IP + GiS suite to the global community.

Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual earth and other services are some of the examples bringing Spaceborne Remote Sensing Imageries to the desktops of common man. Bhuvan is a Geoportal of Indian Space Research Organisation Showcasing Indian Imaging Capabilities in Multisensor, Multi-platform and Multi-temporal domain. This is a one stop versatile web based Earth Observation visualization platform that provides access to information valuable for engaging various developmental activities at the grass root level. While recognising the massive market of agricultural sector in India and the potential use of remote sensing in agriculture as well as allied services/ products, some software/consultancy firms are coming with new ideas to launch several service packages. These IT enabled services envision clubbing the advances in IT and communication with the benefits of Remote sensing technology to serve the range of stake holders in agricultural sector. Once this is successful, this may expand to other sectors which are not traditional users of remote sensing.

Coupled with the advances in smart phones, Location Based Services (LBS) are gaining popularity and importance with several sectors of the economy embracing the new technologies. To meet this market potential, many industry players are coming up with innovative, user

Taking cognizance of the increasing role of Geographical Information System (GIS) in several 12

Signatures, Newsletter of the ISRS–AC, Vol. 23, No.1 & 2, Jan-Jul 2011 friendly and cost effective packages/solutions that utilise the benefits of remote sensing imagery, GIS and GPS.

ISRO to their applications on the ground and also in reaching the services of IRS to the Earth Observation community in the Global market.

4. International Marketing: In addition to the network of IGSs, Antrix has expanded its presence and availability of IRS products and services to several national customers in the international market through a wide network of 20 resellers. Needless to mention majority of them are from the private industry hoisting the flag of IRS in their market segments. Thus, it can be concluded that several national and international industry partners are associates of Antrix Corporation in international remote sensing activities, right from satellite building for

With the advances in the technology, increasing user demands and higher inclination from the industry to join the remote sensing and other space based technology services, the future may witness increased level of industry participation as well as expanded scope of activities in which the industry becomes an important stake holder.

Call for Articles Readers are requested to contribute short articles for publication in the forthcoming issues in their own words, preferably as per the editorial calendar given on page-4, either as a brief survey of state of the art or as articles on specific work carried out by them, or as novel concepts related to the specific theme(s). The deadline for inclusion in the next issue on “Atmospheric & Oceanic Remote Sensing” is Sept 20, 2011. - Editorial Team

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