Summary
Skytek has been awarded a contract from the European Space Agency (ESA) under the ARTES Core Competitiveness Programme for the development of Geospatial Information Networking Techniques for Maritime Awareness Services. The aim of this project is to develop, evolve and enhance systems and tools to support Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), helping European governments control, protect, and manage their territorial waters and exclusive economic zones effectively, thus responding to evolving challenges faced by the different communities in the maritime sector.
“Skytek has decades of experience and a proven track record of developing software in the domain of Maritime Awareness and we look forward to working with them on this project.”.
Dr Nader Alagha – ESA’s Technical Officer
The project’s final goal is to utilise multiple sources of geospatial data to enhance and develop techniques to improve the detection and localisation of vessels compared to pure Automated Identification System (AIS) detection and tracking, hence improving the situational awareness of vessels. This will be achieved by employing new and innovative telecommunication systems and Earth Observation (EO) capabilities, fused with conventional monitoring systems, to deliver a suite of software to empower European maritime awareness systems users with an effective capability to monitor maritime activities in their collective EEZ.
The activity is expected to deliver near-real time software functions for interfacing and combining multi-sources data analytics for maritime awareness services such as vessel detection, identification, monitoring unmanned vessels operation, fuel and route optimisation, weather and environment situation monitoring, accident prevention and intervention. Skytek’s developed algorithms are expected to maximise the synergies among maritime services by utilising integrated data sources for multiple situation awareness applications, such as satellite radar-based surveillance capabilities integrated with AI detection capabilities on EO data.
Dr Sarah Bourke, Skytek CEO, said “This latest collaboration with ESA is testimony to the skills and excellence of our technical team. Working in the Space sector has afforded us the opportunity to work at the leading edge of science and technology. Indeed, we have taken this knowledge and successfully transferred it to other sectors including insurance and security.”
This activity will be carried out under ESA’s ARTES Core Competitiveness Programme.
About Skytek
Skytek is an award-winning software company specialising in creating innovative solutions for a range of complex and demanding industries. It has an enviable track record in developing world-class software solutions for some of the most challenging industries. The company has unparalleled expertise in the Space environment, where it has decades of engagement with ESA and NASA. It has also developed intelligent software solutions for other industries, including Aerospace, Defence and Insurance.
About ESA’S ARTES Core Competitiveness Programme
ESA’s ARTES (Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems) programme is unique in Europe and aims to support the competitiveness of European and Canadian industry on the world market. Core Competitiveness is dedicated to the development, qualification and demonstration of products (“Competitiveness and Growth”), or long-term technology development (“Advanced Technology”). Products in this context can be equipped for the platform or payload of a satellite, a user terminal, or a full telecom system integrating a network with its space segment.
Find out more at: https://artes.esa.int/core-competitiveness
