Around 17 months after the initial proposal to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Business Applications Programme, Earth observation company LiveEO successfully concluded its Demonstration Project, proving the business viability of its solution utilising space technology. ESA’s support to LiveEO throughout the project implementation played a significant role in bringing its product to maturity, lifting its business to the next level and establishing its position as the world leader in satellite augmented infrastructure monitoring.

Demonstration Projects within ESA’s Business Applications Programme have to show clear potential to become sustainable in the post-project phase. To be eligible for funding, proposed projects must include user involvement and contribution, and benefit from the integrated use of one or more space assets. 

LiveEO’s project SIM (Space-Enabled Full-Stack Solution for Infrastructure Monitoring) met these requirements: Utilising satellite data, an infrastructure monitoring platform has been established - in close dialogue with network operators in the verticals electricity, pipeline and railway in the United States and Europe. The solution developed in the course of the project effectively represents LiveEO’s core products on the market today.

Since the implementation’s kick-off, LiveEO’s monitoring solution has brought value to companies both inside and outside the project’s scope. The solution that encompasses vegetation analysis to detect any danger posed by trees to overhead electricity lines and railways, as well as the identification of ground movement and third party influences close to pipelines, has been rolled out to customers around the world.

“There is no question: LiveEO would not fill the market-leading position it has today, had it not been for ESA’s Business Applications Programme,” says Sven Przywarra, Co-Founder of LiveEO, “Aside from the funding, which enabled us to greatly ramp up our engineering team, we found having access to ESA’s network to be invaluable for our business. We are grateful we had the chance to prove how our product can improve people’s lives, using space technology.”

“LiveEO has had an amazing journey throughout the ESA project!  From a small start-up to growing into an established business with a credible service offering, it is well positioned to access the market. This is the result of LiveEO’s technical and business innovation attitude, as well as its truly customer centric approach. It has been a pleasure supporting LiveEO, and I look forward to seeing further developments,”  says Davide Coppola, project manager at ESA Space Solutions. 

About LiveEO

LiveEO is bringing Earth observation to enterprise customers starting in the infrastructure sector. LiveEO utilizes satellite technology to monitor large infrastructure networks globally and empowers the operators to save operational expenses by observing dangers from external threats. By using AI the start-up is generating overviews of thousands of kilometres for decisions on the management level as well as information for the worker on the ground via a front-end and mobile app. LiveEO’s goal is to monitor every major infrastructure grid until 2025. The company has around 50 employees and is headquartered in Berlin, Germany. 

About ESA Space Solutions

ESA Space Solutions is the go-to place for great business ideas involving space in all areas of society and economy. Its mission is to support entrepreneurs in Europe in the development of business using satellite applications and space technology to improve everyday life.

The programme is designed to provide multiple entry points such as ESA Business Incubation Centres (ESA BICs), ESA Technology Broker Network, ESA Business Application Ambassadors and the ESA Business Applications programme. We can also support your ideas of transferring space technology into non-space markets or vice versa.

ESA Business Applications is part of ESA Space Solutions that supports the development of sustainable services utilising space assets. It provides funding opportunities and expert support to entrepreneurs.

An offshore pollution monitoring solution, based on expert interpretations of satellite imagery, is helping to make our marine environment cleaner. By alerting offshore industries to any unusual slicks or discharges, CGG’s SeaScope, developed with the support of ESA Space Solutions, accelerates response times to minimise risks and potential impact. 

Pollution incidents can present a significant risk to the many industries operating offshore because any resulting impact on the local marine environment can have far-reaching reputational and cost implications. A system that offers early detection and qualification of anomalous pollution beyond normal discharge levels could not only help to ensure a timely response, but also minimise any related exposure and vulnerability.

SeaScope meets this need by using satellite Earth observation (EO) data to provide critical intelligence about sea surface slicks. It gives users greater visibility over the interaction between offshore assets, coastal facilities, vessel activity and the local marine environment, which is vitally important for strengthening situational awareness and informing oil spill response activity.

“SeaScope is the latest innovation in our portfolio of environmental monitoring solutions. Its value lies not only in helping offshore industries to respond quickly to events, but also to mitigate risks and support their environmental and operational transparency commitments,” says Peter Whiting, SVP, Geoscience, EAME, CGG.

Combining satellite data for actionable intelligence

Developed by CGG Satellite Mapping with the support of ESA Space Solutions, SeaScope integrates two types of space assets: EO imagery and satellite-derived ship location (AIS) data. EO imagery is interpreted by CGG’s experts to monitor the ocean surface for offshore slicks and determine their extent. The AIS data provides knowledge of ship location and activity, and is used to link slicks with vessels in the area. Combining these technologies generates high-quality, reliable intelligence alerts on anomalous events to offshore infrastructure operators, significantly enhancing their ability to understand the occurrence and evolving behaviour of nearby pollution events. 

SeaScope was developed from 2018 to 2020 as a Demonstration Project as part of the ESA Space Solutions Integrated Applications Promotion (IAP) programme. Over 3020 medium and high-resolution satellite radar scenes were processed and interpreted across infrastructure in the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico and South East Asia. The results (10 750 unique events) were either integrated into client systems or made available via an online portal.

Key to the success of the Demonstration Project was the ability to provide standard geospatial data with clear reporting statistics to emergency response teams, who often have responsibility for multiple offshore assets globally. End-users receive targeted information supported by clear visual data showing the location and extent of any slicks within the SeaScope geographic database. A heatmap showing slicks over time quickly informs operators of anomalous events beyond normal discharge levels. The results provide critical, timely intelligence to multiple operational teams.  

Evidence base of responsible operations

SeaScope’s proactive monitoring enables companies with offshore assets to establish production water baselines and provides early detection of anomalous events and third-party pollution incidents, as well as surveillance of natural seeps. It also supports the creation of an evidence base of responsible operations for stakeholders, such as operators, regulators, investors and insurers. 

“SeaScope delivers a highly scalable remote monitoring solution to identify individual offshore pollution events or verify clean activities across global asset portfolios. The CGG team will continue to develop the analytics surrounding the growing SeaScope database to provide further insights for our user clients,” says Whiting.

SeaScope from CGG on Vimeo. SeaScope uses satellite data from a number of providers to deliver information about sea surface slicks, including data that can be used to provide evidence of responsible operations.

ABOUT ESA SPACE SOLUTIONS

ESA Space Solutions is the go to place for great business ideas involving space in all areas of society and economy. Our mission is to support entrepreneurs in Europe in the development of business using satellite applications and space technology to improve everyday life. ESA Space Solutions is designed to provide multiple entry points such as ESA Business Incubation Centres (ESA BICs), ESA Technology Broker Network, ESA Business Applications Ambassadors and ESA Business Applications programme. Funding typically ranges from €50k to €2M and supports everything from technology transfer, business incubation, Feasibility Studies to large-scale Demonstration Projects.