Service summary
In 2014, the global seaweed harvest’s value was estimated to be EUR six billion. SCAMPER is a decision support software tool that will aid seaweed industry stakeholders in the best exploitation and protection of this key food product.
Seaweed grows in two areas:
- Intertidal seaweed – fast growing Exposed at low tide, use synchronised remote sensing to monitor and measure quality and quantity of exposed „standing seaweed“.
- Submerged seaweed – slower growing Under water, use colour variation (consistent measurement at same point in tidal cycle, e.g. low water spring tide).
SCAMPER will provide the ability to accurately estimate the quantity of exposed “standing” seaweed. In addition to the use of Copernicus datasets, SCAMPER seeks to investigate an ISS-mounted sensor cluster that would provide higher resolution measurement of this resource, possibly independent of visible spectrum detection methods, to enable day/night observation. This would maximise revisit capabilities and thus the quantity of commercially viable data obtained.
Customer Benefit
- Prospecting of possible future farming sites
- End user seaweed producers – how much, where, how healthy, change over time and precision harvesting
- End user food producers – supply chain monitoring, securing and growing
- State agencies – compliance, proper management, pollution monitoring and ecological balance
The Expertise
«National Space Centre (Ireland) was chosen as winner for the Astrosat challenge as their SCAMPER concept targets a real world commercial need which can not yet be served from space. Most importantly they present solid technical benefits and a realistic business case for how this service would run if it were to be deployed, this shows National Space Centre has really thought through what the benefits of using MUSES for both themselves and for their end customers are. We really like that kind of thinking at Astrosat and are looking forward to working with them closer»
Alan McLarney
CTO
Astrosat Ltd.
Company info
Bruce Hannah
National Space Centre, Ireland
bruce.hannah@nationalspacecentre.eu
