Blue Thread

Blue Thread S.r.l. is a small Italian company based in Rome and founded in 2019. The company’s mission is to develop technological solutions for the maritime and nautical world. By using a multi-technological approach that integrates different knowhows, the company aims at responding to the multiple challenges that the maritime domain faces, from improving navigation to monitoring the access to ports and remote marine areas.

Blue Thread collaborates with international and national research centres, such as the University of Tor Vergata in Rome and the Istituto Superiore Mario Boella in Turin. In addition, Blue Thread also developed a fleet monitoring application prototype for sailing races with a wide range of features, such as an optimised start strategy, a lay line determination, and a racecourse registration.

The challenge

According to the FAO’s definition, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are marine geographical areas that need greater protection than the surrounding waters for biodiversity conservation or fishery management purposes. In its geographic diversity, Italy counts around 29 MPAs across the country. Each of these areas is classified according to the protection needed, based on natural, geomorphological, physical, scientific, economic, and educational relevance.

Monitoring and safeguarding MPAs is a complicated task for the local authorities responsible for these areas, due to their extension and to the financial resources required to protect their biodiversity. When it comes to MPAs that are touristic destinations, like the MPA in Porto Cesareo in the Apulia region, monitoring the flux of tourists, their activities, and behaviours, becomes quite challenging.

The satellite solution

In 2019, Blue Thread developed Blue Discovery, a GNSS-based mobile app free to download and available for IOS and Android. The app is complemented by a web-GIS and an Operational Portal that could be managed by the MPA authorities. This was the case for the MPA of Porto Cesareo, that tested the app during the Summers of 2020 and 2021. Blue Discovery allows visitors to get information on the rules to access and visit the marine protected area, on the itineraries to follow, and on the spots of interest in the area surrounding the MPA. The app relies on GNSS technology embedded in smartphones and allows the authorities responsible for managing the MPA to have reliable information and increased position accuracy on the visitors of the areas through the Operational Portal.

A crowdsourcing function of the app allows visitors to send to the area’s managing authority short reports on the sighting of protected species or on environmental crimes. Visitors can upload on the app geo-referenced photos of what they see with the time on which they took them, together with additional details to help the local authorities to intervene in real-time. Furthermore, Blue Discovery provides visitors with the opportunity to request, pay, and issue permits for activities to be carried out in the MPA directly on the app.  All the data collected by the visitors are immediately visualised by the authority on the web portal, which becomes a database of events happening in the protected area that can be monitored by the authorities and used for reporting.

The results

The app allowed the authorities of the marine protected area of Porto Cesareo to monitor the flow of visitors and to keep track of their position in the area. The Blue Discovery app helped the authority of Porto Cesareo to optimise the time and resources deployed to patrol the area, and to validate the fares paid by the visitors and their permits.

Blue Discovery is constantly under development to better support the authorities in charge of managing marine natural areas. Today, Blue Thread is planning to include Earth observation imagery in the app, with the aim to provide additional support for navigation routes, thanks to the implementation of ad hoc ship detection maps. Lastly, Blue Thread is planning to include in the app the Galileo Commercial Authentication Service (CAS), that will provide authenticated, certified positioning, to avoid privacy and legal issues between the visitors and the MPA’s authorities.

Vake

Vake is a Norwegian company specialised in maritime safety and vessel traffic. The company was founded in 2019. It supports governmental agencies to monitor and survey national waters, offshore asset owners to detect dark vessels and reduce potential infrastructure threats and ship insurers to validate and verify the true chain of events.

The challenge

Back in 2008, the European Commission defined maritime domain awareness as the understanding of the activities associated with the maritime area that could impact the safety, security, economy and environment of the European Union and Member States. Acquiring a complete understanding of what happens at sea is relevant today due to the increased maritime traffic and activities in our oceans that are generating multiple threats to core sectors of the economy and to the breaching national security of coastal countries.

Illegal fishing, smuggling, and environmental crimes are the main challenges to be overcome. Detecting and identifying potential criminal vessels is key to filling information gaps and preventing illegal behaviours at sea. Technology already supports governmental authorities and businesses in spotting illicit activities, via drones, airborne sensors, and cameras, but satellite data can help in monitoring wide areas validating the in-situ measurements.

The satellite solution

To support governmental authorities and maritime economic actors, VAKE developed a dashboard that combines two core features: area monitoring and vessel tracking. The platform allows users to detect ships by using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites and machine learning, cross-referenced with other vessel monitoring solutions, such as the Automatic Identification System (AIS) signal, that relies on GNSS technology.

The dashboard allows users to select their area of interest and a temporal frame to obtain data on the ships there located, such as their size and direction. Users can access the images and information in the form of an interactive web report or download the data as a report file. In addition, the dashboard allows for the detection of dark and potentially illegal ships. Users can monitor their area of interest to verify if suspicious vessels are sailing with their AIS signal off, which can be an indicator for potentially illegal activities. By highlighting when this happens, it is possible to prevent these actions or retrace the route of criminals to determine if an action just happened or is it going to happen.

The results

VAKE’s dashboard is helping national authorities to improve sea monitoring, especially for the implementation of fishing analysis, and to prevent and prosecute environmental crimes. The algorithms that power the VAKE platform can also find additional applications to detect human trafficking, smuggling and seawater emissions.

Currently, VAKE is working with the Netherlands Coast Guard to complement and improve their maritime situational awareness. The collaboration with Vake allows the Coast Guard to extract insights on maritime activities from satellite data covering a wider portion of sea than the area they currently monitor. In the next future, VAKE and the Netherlands Coast Guard will combine automating alerts and collection of insights across multiple types of sensors, that will be key assets for maritime authorities.

VAKE is also working on expanding their geographical reach, including North and South America, and Australia. Furthermore, to provide users with night images, VAKE is currently developing products that include SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite imagery.

The Tanzania Fisheries Research Institute

The Tanzania Fisheries Research Institute (TAFIRI) was established in 1980s to promote, coordinate, and conduct research on fisheries in Tanzania. TAFIRI operates under the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries.

TAFIRI is one of the partners of the East Africa Marine Consortium, created within the GMES and Africa initiative. The consortium is led by the Mauritius Oceanographic Institute (MOI) and it includes the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, the Institute of Fisheries and Marine Sciences of Madagascar, the Seychelles Meteorological Authority, and the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association. The project implemented by the consortium aims at seizing the biological and physical state and dynamics of the ocean, fishing grounds, marine ecosystems for the regional seas, coastal vulnerability, and sea state forecasts, to support marine and coastal management activities and adaptation measures in the East Africa Region.

The challenge

A quarter of Tanzania’s population heavily depends on fishery for economic purposes and food. Fishery contributes for about 1.4% of the national GDP and represents an important source of work, employing over 180,000 people, and 19,000 in fish farming.

Due to climate change-related effects and overfishing, coastal fishery is slowly declining, threatening local communities and the economy. Furthermore, pelagic fish stocks are mostly unexploited, due to very limited means and tools, and to a lack of knowledge on how to locate fishing grounds in offshore waters. Artisanal fishers are mostly dependent on inshore fishing grounds and would need support to access profitable fishing areas offshore.

The satellite solution

Within the framework of the GMES and Africa programme, TAFIRI started a collaboration with local fishing communities in the areas of Fundo (Pemba), Nungwi (Zanzibar), Kipumbwi (Tanga), and Kilindoni (Mafia). The aim was to raise awareness on the uses of EO and GNSS data to identify profitable fishing areas, with the final objective of helping local communities to optimise their resources.

TAFIRI, together with local fishery authorities, trained more than 100 ring-net fishers on the use of satellite navigation to track local fishing grounds and develop new safe fishing techniques. Fishermen were given mobile phones with a dedicated app to collect fisheries information. The app includes an SMS alert system, thanks to which the fishermen receive the coordinates of potential fishing zones, as well as data on water quality and temperature derived from Copernicus Sentinel-2. Once leaving the coast, fishermen activate the GNSS signal and check on the app the vessel’s course to reach the identified fishing station. During the trip, fishermen can also include new information, thus validating the satellite data and including additional information collected during their navigation.

The results

The use of satellite data to improve fishery techniques and to guarantee a sustainable fishery is bringing a series of benefits to local fishermen and responsible authorities. The information captured is used by the government to improve fisheries management plans for small and medium species (e.g., sardines) along with large pelagic fish (Tuna and tuna like species) in the coastal waters of Tanzania. The system based on EO and GNSS data helps reducing fishing pressure on inshore waters and provides reliable information to fishermen.

Also, the system is encouraging artisanal fishermen to adopt innovative techniques that could reduce fishing costs and make fishery a safer job. Indeed, the app guarantees to the fishermen the possibility of working without risking their lives due to outdated maps or inadequate data on water and weather conditions. The use of satellite technology to optimise fishery is preserving the marine ecosystem and is helping to implement new policies and fishing strategies for the development of the country, while improving the livelihood of the fishers.

Copenhagen Solutions Lab

Copenhagen Solutions Lab is an internal consultancy of the Technical and Environmental Department of the Municipality of Copenhagen, in Denmark. With a staff of eight people, Copenhagen Solutions Lab works on issues of transversal interest among the City’s departments by using innovative technologies to promote green urban strategies and policies.

The challenge

Air quality is an issue that concerns several municipal departments, including those responsible for adaptation to climate change, environmental protection, transport, biodiversity, water, economic development, and, — especially — health.

Indeed, even in a clean city like Copenhagen, air pollution is identified as one of the main causes of premature deaths and it is suspected of exacerbating illnesses such as cancers, cardiovascular, respiratory and lung diseases, and even neuro-logical disorders like autism, dementia, Parkinson’s, depressions, and more

Traditionally, air quality is monitored through sensors at static stations located around the city. These provide a generic representation of air quality, and in particular its annual average, which reveals long-term trends. Nevertheless, traditional measurements are not able to deliver precise information on where and when pollutants are most present during the day and people are exposed to it.

Copenhagen Solutions Lab was looking for ways to localise air pollution at the street level and to understand when specific city spots are particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon.

The satellite solution

In 2017, Google offered to support the efforts of Copenhagen Solutions Lab by using the methodology developed within their Air View Project, with the help of the University of Utrecht and the University of Aarhus.

Google equipped its Street View cars with air quality sensors and collected data on air quality in every street of Copenhagen. The measurements targeted the pollutants that are emitted in the city, especially nitrogen dioxide, ultrafine particulate matter and black carbon.

The cars logged one measurement per second, collecting very granular spatial data on air quality, which could be geolocated thanks to the Satellite Navigation systems embedded in the cars. These passed on every street at least six times during one and a half year, in order to get the seasonal distribution of air pollution. This was done until March 2020, when the city lockdown caused by the COVID-19 crisis was declared in Copenhagen.

The spatial accuracy of the information collected in such a way allows for the identification of correlations between human activities, infrastructure and air pollution, according to the time of the day and the season.

The results

In October 2019, a preliminary map of air quality in Copenhagen was published and presented by the City’s Deputy Mayor at the meeting of the mayors of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, that was taking place in Copenhagen.

In the same year, the project caught the attention of other local and international partners. Gehl Architects, a Copenhagen-based urban design agency, got interested in the map and decided to use it to understand how they could reduce the effects of air pollution on children by redesigning public spaces. This initiative, The Thrive Zone project, funded by the Bernard van Leer Foundation and the ICLEI Action Fund, aims at designing urban solutions to increase air quality and reduce exposure to pollution, and at involving citizens in data collection, design and in behavioural changes.

In particular, Gehl mapped childcare institutions and interviewed care workers and care givers on children’ movements in two neighbourhoods, and crossed such data with the information they had on air quality to understand how air pollution impacts on them. Afterwards, Gehl produced a “Cleaner Air Network” map, indicating the areas where air quality is better and where children could spend more time, suggesting urban design interventions.

The final map of Copenhagen’s air quality was released openly in the Spring 2021, accessible to anyone. The map allows for the identification of the most polluted areas (major inroads, airport and the city centre) for the different pollutants, i.e. nitrogen dioxide, ultrafine particulates and black carbon. The map aims at serving all departments of the City’s administration, by putting air quality at the core of city policies.

Copenhagen AirView NO2

The dataset and the model to use it are made available to support urban policies aimed at reducing the exposure to pollution, especially for the most vulnerable groups. Meanwhile, the Thrive Zone project continues to test how implementation can happen in existing urban areas and document effects in real life settings, e.g. by using bushes and trees to contrast fine particles, or by building spaces for children and the elderly where air quality is higher) and to make residents less exposed to pollution by changing their behaviour (i.e. by spending less time in polluted areas).

“By making scientific data available to citizens, we have the potential to make global challenges relevant at the local scale”, Rasmus Reeh, Copenhagen Solutions Lab

Flanders Classics

Flanders Classics is an official cooperation among the organisers of the traditional cycle races held in Flanders, among which the Tour of Flanders. Since its founding in 1913, the Tour of Flanders has remained a preeminent cycling race taking place every spring in the Belgian region of Flanders. This annual sporting event has gone on without missing a beat, holding the longest uninterrupted streak of any cycling classic. As one of the five “Monuments” of cycling (considered as the most prestigious and toughest one-day races), the Tour of Flanders is notorious for its cobblestone hills. Every year, cyclists from around the world look forward to tackle the treacherous terrain, which demands a high level of agility and endurance.

The challenge

The 2020 season has been a disrupted one for professional cyclists. The Cobbled Classics held in March and April are among the traditional opening races of the season. However, COVID-19 put a spoke in the wheels postponing or even cancelling most races. The Tour of Flanders was no exception being eventually rescheduled to October.

Fortunately, Flanders Classics have been working on a new project to offer amateurs a virtual edition of its famous cycling race since autumn 2019. But with the lockdown in March 2020 happening just a few weeks before the Tour of Flanders, the organisation had to pick up the pace. In an attempt to keep the event alive, Flanders Classics was looking for an innovative approach to create a virtual alternative of the race.

The satellite solution

In April 2020, Flanders Classics launched a special “Lockdown Edition” for a select peloton of professional riders. The Digital Tour of Flanders was developed in collaboration with Bkool, a Spanish indoor training company. It featured replicated real-world courses based on satellite navigation data. Virtual routes can be built with data coming from a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) enabled cycling computer. Someone rides the circuit in the real world, and the resulting data file contains all the information (distance, elevation, coordinates, etc.) needed to create the track in a virtual world. The sense of riding real-world roads and hill climbs can then be simulated with a smart trainer which constantly changes resistance according to the satellite navigation data of the terrain. While riders do not experience the cobbles, they have to push hard on their smart trainers to overcome the virtual hilly landscape and extreme gradients.

With different 3D camera angles (helicopter, motor, front, etc.), recorded real-life images of the hills, and live performance data of the riders on screen, the first edition was already impressive. However, there was not enough time to fully customise the virtual scenery, which featured a standard Mediterranean landscape of the Spanish-based Bkool app. In their pursuit for an even more realistic environment, Flanders Classics pushed for a permanent virtual cycling platform. This resulted in the Proximus Cycling eSeries, which was developed together with RGT Cycling. In order to produce realistic representations of the road and the surroundings, the virtual RGT environment goes the extra mile with street level imagery. Additionally, satellite imagery can also provide useful information to the developers about the environment, to make the 3D-generated natural and human landscape (vegetation, landmarks, housing density, etc.) more realistic. As covered in our highlight about innovative applications of satellite data in cycling, tracking the progress of riders on the real-world circuit is another great tool that comes with the use of satellite mapping services.

The results

For the first time, Flanders Classics was able to create a virtual version of the Tour of Flanders, “De Ronde 2020: The Lockdown Edition”. Streamed live on YouTube and broadcast through the country’s national television with live commentaries, thirteen world-class cyclists from eight professional teams raced against each other on their smart trainers at home over the last 32 km of the official Tour of Flanders course. This gave teams the opportunity to display their sponsors, while the organisation was also able to integrate in-game sponsorship exposure with custom avatars for team jerseys and partnership visibility on road animations, side fences and beach flags. #DeRonde2020 went viral reaching more than 50 million cycling fans worldwide.

This pioneering experience gave rise to the development of the Proximus Cycling eSeries, a free and realistic cycling environment where cyclists can take on challenges all year round. Through the virtual cycling concept, fans worldwide get the chance to get to know the roads where Flandriens provide a spectacle every year.

“The Proximus Cycling eSeries is an ambitious virtual cycling project with partners RGT Cycling, META and Proximus. We offer plenty of challenges with great prizes in the most realistic environment on the market. This allows us to collect data, to target a younger audience and to offer the typical Flemish courses to the whole world all year long. Happy to confirm our position at the front of the innovation peloton, even when it’s virtual.” – Tomas Van Den Spiegel, CEO Flanders Classics

The Cambridge Rugby Club

The Cambridge Rugby Union Football Club is an English rugby union club currently competing in the National League 1, the third tier of the English rugby union system.

Engagement with local communities in schools and universities is core to the identity of the club. At the same time, the club has ambitions to progress to the next level of the British rugby league system.

The challenge

The players in the senior team of the club are at a semi-professional level, combining their professional careers alongside their rugby. With three sessions per week and additional strength and conditioning training away from the rugby club, players are very serious about the game.

“Combining players’ professional and sporting careers has been the biggest challenge”, says Richie Williams – Director of Rugby at Cambridge RUFC. “Some players are working nine-to-five behind a desk while others are doing manual labour on building sites. This makes it hard to understand individual fatigue levels.” Several ex-professional players have also relocated to Cambridge, where they can pursue high-level careers in sectors such as the pharmaceuticals, a thriving industry in the region, while playing rugby at a competitive level. As a forward-thinking club, the management has been looking for innovative ways to support the coaches, players and youth academy.

The satellite solution

Satellite tracking devices measuring performance in outdoor team sports have become an emerging trend, reaching beyond the boundaries of elite athlete monitoring. Nowadays, players at different levels are used to wearing a sensor underneath or within their shirt. These satellite navigation wearables allow to quantify the precise workload of players in different metrics (accelerations, covered distance, intensity, etc.).

During the 2018-2019 season, Cambridge RUFC was able to use 30 of such devices on a free trial basis thanks to a sponsorship agreement. Given the success of the tracking systems, the club decided to purchase for the following season 30 wearable devices from Quantrax, a local supplier. The devices track sport performance by relying on different Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), including the European Galileo system.

The generated data can be monitored on tablets in real time. The user-friendly software allows coaches to interpret the numbers, as well as to better manage players’ energy levels and workload. Because it is a cloud-based system, the players can keep track of their training data with an app on their phones.

The result

During the 2018-2019 season, the club had to battle until the very last game to avoid relegation, ending 13^th. The next season, when the tracking system came into play, Cambridge RUFC got eight more wins and reached the 9^th place. Meanwhile, the available data — enabling coaches and players to measure training load — allowed for a decrease in muscle injuries. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the system also allows to monitor the conditioning work of players remotely.

Since some of the devices are also made available to players in the youth teams (age 16-18), the use of the technology resulted in a real benefit for the whole club and not just for the senior team. “This gives our youth team’s players a better understanding of their body, of the distance they cover, and of how they can better manage their training load. A big advantage is that the academy players based at Cambridge are able to transfer the use of the data in a classroom environment for their math and science projects. Since a lot of our younger players hope to be professionals one day, it also prepares them for what things are like on a professional level.”

The satellite tracking technology is very much in line with the club’s aspirations: playing at the next level, while preserving its strong community and player-centred philosophy. “We have an open and honest relationship with our players, and we give them responsibility on how the coaching sessions look like. One of the joys of having the satellite tracking system is that players are now able to access the information immediately.” At the same time, coaches are aware of the importance of keeping a healthy balance between coaching and the use of data. “The data supports what we are doing, but we are not slaves to the figures produced during a training session or on a match day. It is merely a tool to support our coaching.”

Younger generations crave for data accessible at their fingertips. In that sense, the app seems to be catered especially for the new generation of rugby players. However, also the older players are seeing the benefits and a number of other rugby clubs at semi-professional level are going to invest in satellite tracking devices in the future because they are also seeing the benefits.

Together with Quantrax, Cambridge RUFC aims to shape the tracking system to develop more rugby specific metrics. The management is convinced that the data will help the club to progress and eventually to achieve its target of playing professional rugby.

“A number of other clubs at our level are going to invest in these tracking devices because they have seen us as a case study, and through conversations with other coaches I spoke about the benefits of this both from a playing and training perspective.” – Richie Williams, Director of Rugby at Cambridge RUFC

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) is more than a sport governing institution. With a geographically based pyramidal structure from club to county, the organisation acts as a social glue throughout urban and rural communities. Often referenced in its ancient myths and legends, the Gaelic Games are indigenous to Ireland. The GAA is an overarching body for these games, with Gaelic football and hurling as the most popular ones. While Gaelic football can be described as a mix of football and rugby, hurling is something between rugby and hockey. Both ball games are played with two teams of 15 players on a pitch that is approximately 40% larger than a football field. The objective is to outscore your opponents over two periods of 35 minutes by striking the ball between two posts, under the crossbar for 3 points and over the bar for 1 point.

Known as the premier county where the GAA was founded in 1884, Tipperary is a place in the South of Ireland with a rich history. The county booked most of its success in hurling, having won the All-Ireland finals three times since 2010. It is landlocked by a number of rivalrous counties such as Kilkenny and Cork, together known as “the big three” of hurling. Dr Damien Young is Performance Analyst for the Tipperary Hurlers. After a successful career of playing for his home club and the county team, Young completed his PhD at Université de Franche-Comté focusing on the match-play demands of hurling.

The challenge

The GAA has always adopted a nearly professional work and training demand whilst maintaining its amateur status. “Players train five or six times per week and they have to work in between which is a real difficulty for them. From businessmen to teachers, these are very busy players so we have to maximise our time when we get them together.”

For a long time, there was a serious lack of knowledge about the match-play demands of hurling. A loose training plan does not sufficiently prepare players for the game, resulting in poor performances and an increase in injuries. Especially with Covid-19 restrictions during the 2020 season, putting the championship on hold and postponing the All-Ireland Finals to just before Christmas, coaches had to be extra careful to avoid spiking the training load after a disrupted period.

The satellite solution

Numerous GNSS-enabled wearable devices incorporating motion and heart rate sensors are available on the athlete monitoring market. However, only a couple of companies also target the GAA. Most clubs and counties rely on STATSports or Catapult Sports, offering satellite tracking devices and performance analysing software with the ability to monitor player and team demands specific to Gaelic football and hurling. Coaches enjoy the user-friendly software to interpret the tracking data, while players are comfortable wearing the lightweight devices in a compression vest.

As part of his research to study the demands of the game, Young introduced the technology in the GAA world. “I wanted to get more reliable data, so in 2010 we were using satellite tracking which was unheard of in hurling. Only some professional football and rugby teams were using it at that time. It was really futuristic for such a traditional game.”

The results

The tracking data allows coaches to optimise training content, increasing the performance of their players. In the 2020 season, the majority of GAA teams are wearing athlete monitoring devices.

Over the years Young has been finding out more and more about the game thanks to satellite tacking data. For the Tipperary Hurlers, he now plugs that knowledge back into training.

“What is very helpful is a breakdown of the intensity of the volume of work that players are undertaking. We receive live feedback on an iPad about different metrics such as high speeds, sprint distance and peak speeds. Observing the load from session to session and keeping the training within certain limits is so valuable. It is very hard to appraise the actual results, but we have noticed a decrease in our injury rates over the last couple of years.” – Dr Damien Young, Performance Analyst at Tipperary Hurlers

Satellite tracking can be a real tool driving competition, performance and overall development of players, coaches, and fans alike. In a lot of communities in Ireland life revolves around the GAA club, and players representing the place in which they were born is what defines its unique identity. The fact that this technology has set foot even in amateur teams, indicates the boom in satellite tracking.

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Stichtsche Cricket & Hockey Club (SCHC) is a Dutch sports club based in Utrecht. The club exists since 1906 and is best known for its field hockey department. While their men’s hockey team currently plays in the second division, the women’s team has played at the highest level since 2004 and is one of the top teams in the Netherlands.

Lucas Judge is a former field hockey international. In 2018-2020 he was the assistant coach for the Netherlands’ national women’s hockey team, the reigning world champion, and he is currently head coach of the SCHC women’s team.

The challenge

During the 2020-2021 season, the club is competing for a spot in the playoffs with the four best teams of the national league. Six players within the team are also preparing to play in the national team in the Olympics. For the club, maintaining fitness levels during the season and avoiding injuries is essential to performance. Lucas and his staff were looking for reliable ways to improve performance monitoring of their athletes that would not be perceived as stressful or invasive.

The satellite solution

Lucas is a strong supporter of performance tracking technologies. He witnessed the very early stages of GPS technology around 20 years ago, when Catapult Sports was starting up in Australia and had the opportunity of testing tracking devices during his playing days.

In 2018 the club decided to start using the JOHAN Sports tracking system. Ever since, players have been wearing a compression vest featuring a sensor between their shoulder blades. The trackers geolocate the movements of the players on the pitch with satellite navigation and provide in-depth data on a wide range of parameters including velocity, deceleration, acceleration, positioning, covered distance, and player load.

An analysis platform allows data to be stored, processed and analysed online. The coach can then see a list of statistics of all the players on a tablet, smartphone, laptop, or any other kind of digital interface. The software offers additional analytical tools to make training reports, providing quick feedback and a better overview.

The results

Better knowledge of individual player performance allows sports scientists and coaches to make informed decisions about training content and enables more accurate and tailored programme planning, for instance extra rest when a player is at risk of injury due to fatigue. The data can also be used to trigger the curiosity of players, as they are now able to verify how intensely they have trained.

While the data should not be sacred, it is a valuable source of information and when interpreted in the right way it contributes to a better training plan resulting in a fitter team. “It is hard to identify a causal relationship between the use of the trackers and a decrease in injuries, but I am convinced that it makes a positive contribution to our overall training programme as it allows us to make better informed decisions. Being able to monitor players remotely is also an asset, especially given the COVID-19 situation. Players can take a sensor with them and wear it during a workout at home.”

The trackers have become an integral part of the game for today’s top clubs. JOHAN Sports strives to make their system affordable for sports teams on all levels. At SCHC both the men’s and women’s first teams make use of the trackers and a limited number of trackers are made available to the coordinators of the youth teams.

“Personally, I consider the technology a must at the highest level and in recent years I have really seen the usage of satellite tracking technology become mainstream within most professional clubs.”

Lucas Judge, head coach of the SCHC women’s team.

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Historic Environment Scotland (HES) is the public body responsible to investigate, care for and promote Scotland’s historic environment.

Over 300 properties are in their direct care, including Edinburgh Castle, the Neolithic settlement at Skara Brae, and Fort George, which together attract more than 5M visitors per year.

The challenge

One fifth of Scotland’s coastline is at risk of erosion and climate change has accelerated the process. Since the 1970s, the erosion rate has doubled and the proportion of retreating coast increased by 39%, threatening a significant number of prehistoric and historic sites on the Scottish coastline.

The satellite sollution

In 2012, HES, the Heritage Lottery Fund and The University of St. Andrews granted an aid to SCAPE (Scotland’s Coastal Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion) to launch the Scotland’s Coastal Heritage at Risk Project (SCHARP).

Within SCHARP, over 1000 volunteers were mobilised to collect information about the condition of sites on the coast. Relying on the satellite navigation system built into their mobile devices and a mobile app, the volunteers updated existing data on 35% of Scotland’s coastline.

A “sites at risk” map, hosted on the SCHARP website, provides access to all data collected. This information is added to the National Record of the Historic Environment in Scotland (Canmore) and provided HES, local authorities and archaeologists with a tool for improved management of the vulnerable heritage on the coast.

In 2015, HES and SCAPE joined Dynamic Coast, a pan-government initiative funded by the Scottish Government and supported by Scottish National Heritage, aimed at building an evidence base of coastal change across all of Scotland’s erodible shores.

First, Dynamic Coast developed a geographic information system (GIS) map of coastal changes since the 19^th century, primarily through analysis of existing maps and remote sensing imagery. In its second phase, the project aims to measure and model the full extent of the intertidal zone (the area where the land meets the sea) to understand which stretches of coast and historic assets are most at risk.

The project team is analysing the Sentinel-2 satellite’s full back catalogue of optical data. This is then compared with historical maps, modern and legacy aerial imagery and surveys of the vegetation edge to map, measure and model coastal changes.

The results

“The advantage of using satellite data is the level of semi-automation that is possible, meaning that a very high quality assessment can be made with a tiny fraction of the resources that would have been needed in the past”, says Mairi Davies, Climate Change Manager at HES.

The web-maps, summaries and reports are available on the web portal of the project and are used by HES to monitor the heritage sites and buildings under their care and to plan and prioritise interventions.

In 2019, to further explore the potential of satellite applications, HES launched a project in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Moniteye to trial the use of GNSS and of data from the Sentinel-1 satellite to monitor some of the cultural heritage sites in their care.

The Euro-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) is a non-governmental organisation tasked with collecting data from seismological observatories in 81 institutes across 57 countries.

The challenge

In order to alert concerned populations and the public authorities responsible for activating rescue forces, the EMSC needs to locate earthquakes in almost real-time.

The satellite solution

To detect earthquakes that can be felt by humans, the EMSC relies on the use of the word “earthquake” on Twitter in various languages and it closely monitors its website traffic, as well as of the use of its mobile app LastQuake. By compiling this information, the EMSC can automatically detect felt earthquakes before seismic information is available (typically within 15 to 90 seconds).

The LastQuake app allows earthquake witnesses to report seismic events directly to the EMSC and to automatically locate the epicentre and assess damages through their Smartphone built-in GNSS receiver. It can be downloaded free of charge and is currently being used by 360 000 people worldwide.

The results

When using the app, witnesses are asked to report about the perceived shaking or the damages seen through a set of user friendly cartoons. Through the app, they have also the possibility to share geo-located photos and videos of the affected areas.

By combining mobile and internet technologies, the EMSC is able to provide the public with real-time information on seismic events and post-earthquakes safety tips. The app also allows users to send messages via SMS to their family and friends to confirm they are safe and to share information on social media.

Within a few minutes, the information supplied through the app allows the EMSC to automatically map the earthquake’s impact with eyewitnesses acting as real-time motion sensors.

On 15 January 2018, the LastQuake app allowed EMSC to detect a 4.4 Magnitude earthquake close to Athens (Greece) in 24 seconds thanks to 544 real-time testimonies.  Seismographers needed 292 seconds to detect and locate the same event. A similar example is related again to Athens, when on 19^th July 2019 the earth trembled again. EMSC detected a 5.1 Magnitude earthquake.