With support from an ESA Demonstration Project, golfing performance specialist Shot Scope has delivered new software application solutions to golfers globally, growing its golfer user base by more than a factor of four. The developments made during the 18-month Golf Data Intellect project have also led to new commercial partnerships on both sides of the Atlantic.

Founded in 2015, Shot Scope specialises in providing wearable GNSS and automatic performance tracking technology solutions to the worldwide golfing market. By utilising a combination of GNSS signals and satellite imagery, Shot Scope products now help golfers review their game quickly and easily, and improve their performance by gaining insights into how they play on each course and learning how to choose the most appropriate club for each hole.

During the Demonstration Project, which started in 2020, Shot Scope engineers developed software to deliver six new features to users of the Shot Scope mobile application. These were tested and trialled, with four of the six then further refined and launched to users across 120 countries. The company’s user base has grown from 20,000 before the project started to over 85,000.

The project trials involved a UK golf retailer, a USA-based golf equipment manufacturer and over 500 beta Shot Scope users. In total, the technology developed during the Golf Data Intellect project was tested by over 7,500 golfers playing over 30,000 rounds of golf. 

Helping golfers iron out weaknesses

Shot Scope has a database of 40,000 golf courses mapped metre by metre using the company’s proprietary course mapping software. In addition, the patented technology in Shot Scope’s wearable devices includes an RFID antenna. Together, this means that by using GNSS data, the exact position of a golfer, the shot played, or the layout of the course can be provided on a wearable or handheld device. 

As a result of the project, which was co-funded by ESA, Shot Scope’s devices now provide a range of on-course data. This includes: overhead views of every hole, detailing every shot; personal statistics, analytics and performance insights; heat maps; and interactive graphs, charts and tables that relate to a round, season or custom events as set by the user.

“I’m pleased to see the success of Shot Scope: this is a great example of the potential of space to drive commercial solutions within the sports industry“ says Elena Razzano, Business Applications Officer at ESA Space Solutions.

Among the future commercial developments are a coaching platform and a data platform. Shot Scope has started working with college coaches in the USA to further refine the coaching platform ahead of its commercial launch in 2023, and aims to partner initially with at least 25 USA-based college golf teams. The launch will be in partnership with a global telecoms leader.  

In parallel, Shot Scope is working with a retailer in Europe on further development of the data platform, with a roadmap of 18 to 24 months for commercial launch of the platform. Another partnership will see it work with a distributor in Japan.

The four-fold growth in the number of users during the 18 months of the project has been matched with a 400% increase in revenue. The company is now seeking to recruit four new software developers and expand its the commercial team. The number of daily rounds recorded on Shot Scope has also increased by a factor of four to an average daily round count of over 10,000 rounds, with the company forecasting this will grow to over 50,000 daily by the end of 2023.

David Hunter, CEO of Shot Scope said: “ESA’s support in the Golf Data Intellect project has allowed us to expand and grow our software development team, which in turn has enabled us to accelerate the development of game-changing features for the golf market. This in turn will help us expand internationally.” 

The commodities market is benefitting from a new solution that monitors climate risks and emissions in its supply chain, thanks to a project co-funded through ESA’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) 4.0 programme. The SMOCGEO product from Sust Global applies machine learning methods to space-derived data to provide both long-term and near real-time monitoring, providing insights to support sustainability in the market.

Weather and other climate-related events can have a significant impact on commodity prices. Commodities market intelligence firms are therefore keen to access information on global patterns of climate activity and their corresponding effects on commodities prices, enabling customers to predict business disruptions and adapt their operations accordingly. Despite increasing availability of climate data, the challenge has always been to access information that is both timely and forward-looking – something that Sust Global sought to address in its Sustainability Monitoring of Commodities using Geospatial Analytics (SMOCGEO) project by applying machine learning to satellite data.

How climate events affect commodity prices

Commodities such as raw materials or agricultural products have supply chains that are highly exposed to the effects of climate change, such as wildfires, flooding, drought or cyclones. 

For example, when Taiwan's total rainfall in the first quarter of 2021 was 22% lower than its average, some areas of Taichung faced water supply cuts for two days every week. This included Taiwan’s leading semiconductor producer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which uses 150,000 tons of water every day in the process of making semiconductors. TSMC produces 92% of the world’s most sophisticated chips, so the lack of water caused a shortage of new devices that incorporate them, such as smartphones and other smart devices. 

Financial markets need to be able to take into account risks, including those linked to climate change, when they place a value on assets in order to support informed decision-making. Related to this, companies, banks, and investors have to comply with emissions reporting standards and frameworks, such as the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), set up by the Financial Stability Board in the US. Cheaper and more up-to-date information on emissions are therefore highly desirable.

Delivering timely emissions data

Commodities supply chains include industries that emit high levels of emissions, especially mines and smelters. However, until now, methods of gathering emissions data for greenhouse gases such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulphur dioxide (SO2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) have been both expensive and backwards looking, relying on statistical sampling from physical site visits or data that is 6 to 12 months out of date. 

Sust Global has tackled this by fusing satellite data with geospatial data and machine learning techniques to transform complex climate data into meaningful information for corporates and financial institutions. This provides customers with high quality physical climate risk exposure and emissions data on an asset-by-asset basis. 

To monitor emissions, SMOCGEO uses data from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on the Sentinel-5P satellite, which monitors both SO2 and NO2 emissions. It then applies satellite-derived technology to improve the cadence and resolution of forward-looking climate risk datasets. For example, using wildfire detection sensors from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra and Aqua satellites helps increase the resolution of its predictive models by 16 times compared with existing solutions. Data is made available on a weekly or monthly basis. 

New indicators on global activity and sustainability based on satellite and machine learning technologies, such as factory activity and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, are also available. 

Josh Gilbert, CEO of Sust Global, says: “Through the SMOCGEO project, we have been able to commercialise satellite-derived data and serve it to multiple customers. ESA’s support has been critical to our early success as a start-up, and has helped us to bring cutting-edge sustainability insights and analytics to market.”

With the project now complete, the product is being used by paying blue chip customers, whose feedback is being incorporated into further development. Sust Global’s cloud-based technical infrastructure enables analysts to intuitively interact with millions of data points across the globe, turning raw data into operational business insights.

Three different types of organisations are benefitting from enhancements to a data platform focussing on the provision of agricultural information, thanks to an ESA Demonstration Project. The Fusion Platform® from Digital Content Analysis Technology Ltd (D-CAT) in the UK now offers tailored, on-demand services to agricultural corporates and a new marketplace for algorithm and data providers.

Satellite data offers a potentially powerful solution for farmers to understand the status of their crops and fields on a large-scale basis, especially when combined with airborne and ground-based data. D-CAT now provides a flexible range of options for agricultural corporates that makes full use of such data, following the expansion of services available through its Fusion Platform® as a result of the 16-month Demonstration Project, co-funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), which started in April 2020. These corporate clients can then create their own on-demand API (Application Programming Interface) services for farmers and agronomists to use as part of their daily decision-making.

Unusually, D-CAT’s agricultural platform does not solely focus on just one group of users. Instead, it also provides a route for algorithm providers to commercialise their bespoke solutions by making them available to end-users through the ‘Algorithms as a Service’ marketplace capability. Developers can trade through the marketplace via either licence or pay-per-click agreements.

The third group of Fusion users are data providers who hold the rights to satellite Earth observation (EO) imagery. Fusion provides a ‘reverse auction’ capability for data. End-users can choose from multiple price/performance options for the data or imagery service they require, and then data providers can bid to provide these services at the agreed price. 

“Our aim is to deliver data intelligence that makes a real, impactful difference to businesses across the globe, supporting them to achieve their financial and environmental goals,” explained Phil McLachlan, CEO of Glasgow-based D-CAT.

D-CAT itself offers a combination of space, drone, and ground-based assets, including free and commercial optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) EO imagery. This includes Sentinel-1, -2 and -3, and Landsat 8 data. The system also makes use of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data.

Global Demonstration Project partners 

D-CAT worked with a variety of organisations during the Demonstrator Project, including existing client Elders, an Australian company. “Working with D-CAT on its ESA co-funded Fusion Platform® has allowed our business to explore the benefits of potential new services with our own clients,” said Graham Page, Head of Technical Services at Elders. “During this Demonstration Project, we established that our clients have an appetite for paying for new digital agritech services, and in particular those that detect frost damage and predict yield and biomass months before harvest.”

Algorithm providers involved in the project included Australian company P2P Agri and Pixalytics and the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde from the UK. The data providers were AAC Clyde Space (UK) and HyperSat LLC (US). 

AAC Clyde Space are continually developing their Space Data as a Service model, incorporating innovative technology and service solutions where a significant step change can be realised. This aligns with the Fusion Platform® approach, which provides it with a new distribution channel for its – and its partners’ – EO data and allows it to price its data differently for different applications. “Fusion increases our customer reach without the proportionate sales effort and time on our side,” explained Dr Andrew Carrel, President of Data and Services at AAC Clyde Space.

The Fusion Platform® is now being commercially developed, including broadening the scope to other areas, including insurance, commodities, and infrastructure. Its API service capabilities are already being shared by Amazon Web Services (AWS) on its Marketplace and Data Exchange platforms, after AWS was selected to provide the project’s server-less architecture.