Irish Companies Secure Co-funding Under ESA’s Earth Observation Programme
Three Irish companies have been awarded co-funding under the European Space Agency’s Earth Observation programme, with a total value over €1.5 million. Two of these companies secured co-funding through Ireland’s investment in the InCubed programme, which supports industry to develop new commercial Earth Observation based products by providing rapid co-funding.
mBryonics, a Galway-based company which specialise in photonics, has secured co-funding of €800,000 under ESA’s InCubed programme to support the development of a software defined optical transport network to deliver very high throughput Earth Observation data downloads. The system addresses the issue of cloud blockage that has previously prevented reliable high capacity optical data downlinks. The project aims to validate hardware and software for the commercial roll out of an optical network service.
A second company, Skytek, Dublin, has achieved co-funding under ESA’s InCubed programme for €470,000. Building on their Marine Aggregate Tool (MAT), Skytek received InCubed funding support to develop an advanced application to allow insurers to assess the real time scale of cargo in ports, hence, enabling them to effectively manage risks. The application is based on advanced analytic techniques such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
Davra, Dublin, has also secured 50 percent co-funding for a €570,000 project to develop an integrated satellite and distributed ground sensor system to monitor mining Tailings Storage Facilities (TSFs) in remote locations.
