Partners
The consortium partners involved in this project have a strong expertise in altimetry data science, namely:
- a great understanding of the physical processes that impact the measurements over various surfaces (open ocean, coastal ocean, sea ice and hydrological regions),
- a solid knowledge of the instrumental characteristics and processing algorithms that are applied on measurements, and
- a large expertise in the methods and metrics used to analyse altimetry signals.
CLS (Collecte Localisation Satellites) is the prime contractor for this project. CLS, created in 1986, is a subsidiary of the French Space Agency (CNES) and CNP, an investment firm. Its mission is to create innovative space-based solutions to understand and protect our planet and to manage its resources sustainably. CLS employs 900 people in the world. The company works in five strategic markets:
- environmental monitoring,
- maritime surveillance,
- fleet management, and
- energy & mining.
CLS processes data from 100,000 transponders per month (such as drifting buoys, animal tags, VMS transponders, & LRIT tracking) and observes the oceans and inland waters (more than 20 instruments onboard satellites daily deliver information to CLS on the world’s seas and oceans). In addition, CLS monitors land and sea activities by satellite (nearly 10,000 radar images and several hundred drone flights are processed each year). The CLS Group had revenue of nearly 135 million Euros in 2020. Committed to a sustainable planet, the company works every day for the Earth, from Space.
CLS holds more than 25-year experience in environmental monitoring by remote sensing techniques. CLS has been acting continuously in Earth Observation (EO) projects providing services to French and European space agencies, CNES, ESA, EUMETSAT and European stakeholders like the European Union, through research programmes, FP5, 6, 7, H2020 and through the operational Copernicus programme.
Founded in 2003 by personnel with considerable experience in the space sector, in particular sensor geometry and image processing, the company is headquartered near Toulouse, France, in the heart of the French space sector. It has grown rapidly and steadily over the past 10 years to its present size of 161. Magellium has a subsidiary in the Paris area (Courbevoie) as a result of the acquisition of the defence branch of Générale d’Infographie in 2009. In 2010, Magellium acquired a digital cartography specialist company, Geotexel, thus consolidating its offer in this market.
Magellium benefits from recognized skills in the fields of Earth observation, geographic information systems, geo-intelligence and vision-based embedded systems. These are the four departments of the company. Our offer includes scientific studies, software & IT system development, supply of turnkey products and services, as well as consulting services.
- Earth observation: Our know-how is highly relevant for satellite imagery; we have expert knowledge of sensors & image processing, atmospheric corrections and calibration, algorithms and geophysical parameters retrieval, instrument and algorithm ground segment processing and geophysical applications of Space and Earth Observation data.
- GIS and Mapping: We integrate third-party GIS solutions for various applications and handle challenging security, mobility and data fusion issues. We can deliver generic tools for large scale map production and dissemination.
- GeoIntelligence: Our expertise covers the whole SDI (Spatial Data Infrastructure) life cycle from open source intelligence (OSINT) to emergency mapping production.
- Computes vision and robotics: Our expertise in geometry and image processing is valuable in many robotics and opto-electronics applications ranging from 2D/3D pattern recognition to vision-based localisation.
ARESYS S.r.l., Advanced Remote-Sensing Systems, is an Italian SME spin-off of “Politecnico di Milano”, providing solutions since 2003 to the aero-space & defense, oil & gas and industrial markets. ARESYS designs and develops ad-hoc innovative monitoring solutions, at HW & SW level, exploiting cutting-edge sensing technologies like microwave Radar/SAR and optical imaging, seismic surveys and vibroacoustic sensors. Based in Milan, ARESYS is divided in four business units, each of them covering specific technologies and markets.
Nowadays (2020) ARESYS can count on a group of about 60 high skilled professionals (nearly half of them hold a Ph.D. degree), composed by top-level engineers, physicists and computing science experts for an annual turnover of about 6M€. The following figures show respectively ARESYS historical revenues, current revenues distribution among business units and personnel qualification level. The Aresys’ Earth Observation business unit will be the one involved in the proposed activity. Aresys is well known for its expertise in altimetry and in particular on CryoSat and Sentinel-6 missions, thanks to the involvement of the company in different European altimetry and SAR Missions.
The Technische Universität München (TUM; Technical University of Munich) is a public funded research university with campuses in Munich, Garching, and Weihenstephan. Since its charter in 1868 TUM has established the sound reputation as a leading academic institution. It is one of the largest and most notable German institutes of technology. TUM comprises 14 Academic Faculties and 9 Corporate Research Centers. Around 40,000 students, 500 professors, and roughly 10,000 academic and non-academic staff are forming a strong university community. The Deutsches Geodätisches Forschungsinstitut der Technischen Universität München (DGFI-TUM; Chair: Prof. F. Seitz) is a unit within the Faculty of Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering of the TUM.
Since many decades, DGFI-TUM has been involved in the processing, analysis and combination of observations from various space-geodetic observation systems (among them SLR, VLBI, GNSS, DORIS, satellite altimetry) for the determination and provision of highly accurate and consistent geometrical and physical parameters related to the Earth’s geometry, rotation, gravity field, ocean and inland waters. Furthermore DGFI-TUM is strongly engaged in the determination of precise satellite orbits, in particular from SLR observations.
Satellite altimetry is one of the two research areas of DGFI-TUM. Since many years the institute has been engaged in the determination, monitoring and investigation of global and regional variations of the water level of the ocean (open ocean, sea-ice regions and coastal areas) and of globally distributed inland water bodies on different spatial and temporal scales. This research is based on our carefully harmonized and cross-calibrated multi-mission data set from the complete record of all radar and laser altimeter missions since 1992. In many projects, DGFI-TUM uses the multi-mission data for various ocean applications (e.g., the estimation of the global mean sea level trend and regional sea level trends, the determination of the dynamic ocean topography and ocean surface currents, and the computation of empirical ocean tide models like EOT11a), and for the determination of water levels of lakes, reservoirs, rivers and wetlands.
The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is the United Kingdom’s centre of excellence for oceanographic research. As a charitable company limited by guarantee, it is an independent self-governing organisation. The NOC employs around 650 staff across two sites in Southampton and in Liverpool. It is co-located at both sites with University of Southampton and University of Liverpool, giving NOC a unique position in UK marine research. NOC works with a number of leading UK Universities to support education and training in marine science.
The NOC is part-funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to deliver marine science in National Capability programmes. NOC manages on UKRI’s behalf, the National Marine Equipment Pool – Europe’s largest fleet of autonomous and robotic vehicles, and two state of the art research ships RRS Discovery and RRS James Cook. The acquisition, curation and analysis of geospatial data are at the core of many of the activities we carry out, across our five main areas of research: Marine Geoscience, Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems, Marine Systems Modelling, Marine Physics and Ocean Climate, and Ocean Technology and Engineering. We are also home to the nation’s marine data assets; the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC), the British Ocean Sediment Core Research Facility (BOSCORF) and the Discovery Collections.
The NOC Satellite Oceanography team delivers research, consultancy and training in remote sensing techniques relevant to monitoring ocean, shelf seas and coastal regions globally. The team has an international reputation for the development and validation of new sensors and missions, and for the development of new data processing techniques, tools and products to enable novel research and applications. The NOC team has particular strengths in satellite altimetry (sea level, waves and winds), scatterometry and GNSS-Reflectometry (ocean winds, waves, sea ice), SAR and SAR Along-track Interferometry (high-resolution ocean surface current vectors), L-band radiometry (sea surface salinity) and high-resolution hyperspectral and multi-spectral imaging of ocean and coastal waters.
The Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP) is one of the oldest and largest schools of the University of Porto. It was established in 1911 and has been providing high-quality training in the field of exact and natural sciences and mathematics. Over the years it has been incorporating other fields of studies, such as Geographical Engineering, Astronomy, Computer Science and Information Technology, Biochemistry, Landscape Architecture, Environmental and Agricultural Sciences.
FCUP currently hosts six academic departments and six high-performing Research and Development Units: the centres of theoretical physics (CFP), geology (CGUP) and mathematics (CMUP), along with CICGE (Geo-Space Sciences Research Centre), CIQUIP (Chemical Research Centre) and IFIMUP (Applied Physics Centre). FCUP is also partnered with twelve other R&D Units, including the Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR). Offering more than 70 teaching programmes, FCUP has a highly-qualified teaching and research staff responsible for providing a high-quality education, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Besides its core infrastructures, FCUP also incorporates other buildings, such as a Marine Zoology Station, a Geophysical Institute, Botanical Gardens, a Science Museum, an Astronomical Observatory, a Museum of Natural History and a museum with an old collection of documents. FCUP also provides external services related to documents and handwriting examination, statistics and physics.
FCUP has been involved in several ITT projects with ESA, particularly in the field of satellite altimetry.