rasdaman newsletter 01/2021
CENTURION: Combining Datacube Analytics and AI
Despite the difficult Covid-19 times we are facing our company has been quite successful in 2020, including convincing new customers of the value proposition of rasdaman.
The CENTURION project enhances Copernicus data use for larger EO and non-EO markets by combining and advancing ground-breaking European innovations such as datacube analytics and AI. The rasdaman datacube engine is one of the core technologies to achieve the project´s goals.
The project improves analysis and management capabilities and delivers timely valuable services to enable effortless use of Earth observations Data (EOD), fostering a service ecosystem of freely combinable open and paid offerings by industry, agencies, research, and universities.
To achieve these aims, CENTURION activities include development and assessment of novel software and technologies according to end users requirements, validation in use cases, dissemination, standardization, and exploitation. CENTURION validates the project objectives in a specific, tailored set of 5 use cases. These use cases are only exemplary, they are likewise be applicable (and are marketed actively) to many further domains, including (but not limited to) agriculture, environment, forestry, maritime and marine applications, in-land water management, disaster mitigation, even security & defence, as well as bespoke free and commercial services. The project will create a unique community, a new "Earth Observation Helix" to maximise clustering and dissemination to all the relevant stakeholders (researchers, industries, investors, municipalities, policy makers, NGOs, Society).
Learn more at centurion-project.eu! Datacubes for Environment and Security Rapid environmental changes due to climate change call for innovative technological approaches. NATO has started a new project exploiting Big Earth Datacube Analytics for Transnational Security and Environment Protection. The multi-national kick-off meeting in Brussels demonstrates encouraging efforts. The Sixth Climate Change Assessment Report IPCC published this year points at changes in extremes such as heat waves, heavy precipitation, droughts and tropical cyclones, nowadays registered every month. Cube4EnvSec is a new multi-year NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) project which will demonstrate how datacubes can contribute to agile insights on Big Earth Data for observing natural and human-made threats of any kind, combining ground, space, and airborne sources ad-hoc and in real-time. "Cube4EnvSec is a prime example of how NATO can mobilise the best expertise and knowledge of the scientific community to make a crucial difference", assesses Dr. Jamie Shea, former Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges at NATO Headquarters. A series of relevant practical use cases will demonstrate these capabilities. The current non-exhaustive list includes real-time data fusion of on-board aircraft and vessel data sources with large-scale Copernicus satellite archives; thunderstorm warning for aviation; harbor protection and natural resource monitoring over Greenland. "The new generation of high-resolution, 1 to 10 cm imagery enables the quality and accuracy of procedures such as change analysis for airfields on unstable ground (thawing permafrost), flood simulations, harbour security in case of sea level rise or land slide risk”, adds LtCol Rene Heise, former Section Head at the NATO Allied Command Operations and member of the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change. The project utilizes the leading datacube technology, rasdaman, for the sharing of Big Earth Data, with special emphasis on timeseries support, location-transparent federation, and dynamic distributed data fusion across fixed and moving sources. "We aim at unleashing and showcasing the benefits of massive space/time federated datacubes as a particular enabler for better understanding our planet", explains project coordinator Dr. Peter Baumann, Professor of Computer Science in Bremen, Germany. Cube4EnvSec partners are Jacobs University (Germany, lead), Tel Aviv University (Israel), and Greenland Institute of National Resources (Greenland/Denmark); further international partners who have expressed an interest to join. LtCol Rene Heise from NATO-HQ acts as Scientific Advisor. The Cube4EnvSec project is supported by the NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) program, with a runtime from May 2022 through October 2023. Learn more at the Cube4EnvSec project site: https://c4se.org/ DynAWI: Revolution of Extreme Weather Forecasting The DynAWI project (Dynamic Agricultural Weather Indicators for Extreme Weather Forecasting) combines Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning methods with geospatial data delivery and processing systems to produce up-to-date, high spatial and temporal resolution maps of extreme weather hazards for agriculture. Coupling datacube technology with Artificial Intelligence methods opens up new possibilities for analyzing large amounts of data, e.g. on phenology and weather, quickly and accurately for agricultural issues. In DynAWI, web services for crop-specific assessment and identification of extreme weather situations are established based on standardized initial data. The resulting datacube services will be integrated into the European data infrastructure GAIA-X. The consortium partners all contribute their specific expertise in the field of indicator derivation (Julius-Kühn-Institut, Germany, and Vereinigte Hagelversicherung, Germany), datacube technology (rasdaman GmbH, Germany), Artificial Intelligence (Soilution, Germany) and soil erosion (University of Augsburg, Germany), as well as operational extreme weather risk assessment (Vereinigte Hagelversicherung, Germany). The agricultural weather indices (AWIs) are validated through continuously measured field data to determine and represent the uncertainties of the indices. The large amount of data from various Earth observation data and the complexity of the analyses requires datacube technology for implementation. The rasdaman datacube technology provides the underlying core functionality here. With three selected extreme weather situations (drought, late frost and soil erosion by water) as use cases the project will first identify optimal AWIs adapted to local site conditions. From this, models for region-specific spatio-temporal forecasts of extreme weather situations will be developed. DynAWI is in part funded bei German Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food (BMEL). Cubes in the Sky at ESA LPS Don´t miss our presentations at ESA´s Living Planet Symposium, 23-27 May in Bonn. We keep you in the loop with orals and posters to the topic of datacubes, Artificial Intelligence and federations. 24 May, 11.10am, room 6, talk Peter Baumann: ORBiDANSE: Querying Cubes in the Sky Learn more about shifting data processing on board of satellites so that not raw data, but answers to user questions can be provided in near-realtime. 25 May, 17.30pm, poster: AI-Cube: Combining Datacube Scalability with AI Intelligence We present the AI-Cube project where datacube fusion and AI-based analytics will be integrated, demonstrated in several real-life application scenarios, and evaluated on a federation of DIASs and further high-volume EO / geo data offerings. 26 May, 17.30pm, poster: Pixels United: An Open, Standards-Based Datacube Federation We give you insights into the largest operative datacube federation worldwide - the EarthServer inititive. Currently a data volume of 136 Petabyte is available, and every day it grows. The federation is working towards the vision of a single integrated, homogenized, location-transparent datacube pool. In analogy to the term "server-less" such a federation might be called "datacenter-less" as users do not need to know the concrete data location any longer. Interested to learn more? The rasdaman team loves to inform you. Write us an email: contact@rasdaman.com