A company from one of ESA’s Business Incubation Centres has used space technology to develop a scanner to spot weaknesses in dike structures. It is being used to inspect dikes and dams on the Danube river and in the Netherlands.
Dutch start-up company Miramap’s instrument can ‘look’ into the ground and measure the amount of water in the soil. This is important in checking the stability of dams and dikes. Very wet areas can indicate a weakened or even dangerously unstable structure. By mounting the scanner on an aircraft, large areas can be mapped easily, identifying point to be inspected and perhaps repaired.
Miramap’s Airborne Passive Microwave Radiometry soil moisture instrument is based on Passive Microwave Radiometry, a technology used on satellites to monitor changes in soil moisture and ocean salinity on Earth.
ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission will make observations of soil moisture over Earth’s landmasses and salinity over the oceans. This will improve understanding of Earth’s water cycle, improve weather and climate models, and be useful in agriculture and water resource management. SMOS is planned for launch later this year.
Kick-started by ESA Business Incubation
Miramap’s technology was developed in ESA’s Business Incubation Centre in the Netherlands, part of the Agency’s Technology Transfer Programme office, set up to capitalise on space-based technology and know-how for the benefit of Europe’s economy and science.
Following two years of research and development of the new scanner, supported by ESA experts, the company won several contracts. One was with the Dutch Ministry of Traffic and Water Management to monitor the moisture content of water barriers to detect dangerously weak zones.
Check of several Bulgarian river areas and their dike structure
Miramap further developed their sensor into a sensor-suite that simultaneously collects high-accuracy underground soil-moisture data, ground-temperature data, digital elevation data and high-resolution geometrically corrected photos. It consists of three sensors operating in the X-, C- and L-bands, a thermal-infrared camera, a lidar-scanner and a digital photo camera, with all measurements location-marked with satellite navigation positioning data.
The sensors were mounted on a light aircraft and operated simultaneously to cover two areas: the Rusenski Lom river and its dams at Nikolovo near Rousse, and the dike structures around the Danube and Yantra rivers.
The company has widened its unique and customised product range to use the sensor to map energy-loss through buildings and the integrity of factory chimneys using airborne thermal-infrared surveys.
This product was introduced last winter in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, to raise the awareness of citizens of wasteful heat loss through house roofs. This November, the company plans to cover Amsterdam. These 3D-inspections are done by Miramap’s sister company ‘Geocopter’ using its small, remotely controlled unmanned helicopter.
Business Incubation
ESA’s Business Incubation is one of the major initiatives of ESA’s TTP Office. As part of its endeavour to encourage the transfer and commercialisation of space technologies, four Business Incubation Centres have been set up in the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. The centres support selected entrepreneurs with comprehensive commercial and technical assistance to help them start up businesses that use space technology in non-space industrial, scientific and commercial fields.
ESA’s Technology Transfer Programme Office
The main mission of the TTPO is to facilitate the use of space technology and space systems for non-space applications and to demonstrate the benefit of the European space programme to European citizens. The office is responsible for defining the overall approach and strategy for the transfer of space technologies, including the incubation of start-up companies and their funding.
