Natural disasters - intended as hurricanes, landslides, fires, avalanches, flooding, earthquakes, industrial accidents, terroristic attacks, eruptions, pollution, etc… - have been seriously threatening the well-being of the global society. Over the past 50 years, more than 11,000 disasters have been attributed to weather, climate and water-related hazards, involving 2 million deaths. In this context Space assets and remotely piloted aircraft (drones) play a crucial role in emergency response and disaster management. First responders ask for a quick to deploy in-situ solution based on resilient and robust infrastructure to perform accurate mapping and extended surveillance for people and assets localisation. Accordingly, EUSATfinder is about demonstrating the effectiveness of a synergic use of three main European space programs, namely GOVSATCOM, Copernicus and Galileo in such critical situations. Three (3) GOVSATCOM resources will be used, namely ATHENA FIDUS Italina and French payload and VHTS Konnect from Eutelsat. Interfacing versus GOVSATCOM HUB will be also studied so that stakeholders may benefit of common pool of SATCOM resources (capacity and services) to face a situation crisis management. The purpose of the EUSATfinder is to provide an innovative integrated and scalable solution to support first responders in real-life during different operational phases and improving citizens wellbeing. In particular, in the tactical phase, EUSATfinder aims at improving the intervention capability and reducing the reaction time using shared capacities from different governmental and private satellite systems interoperable with terrestrial communication services. The above introduced objectives confer to the EUSATfinder project a worldwide dimension, having European public authorities, industries and research centres with the clear role to bring innovation and know-how to allow an effective crisis area management in emergency situations worldwide.

The MISTRALE project proposes to address soils moisture management in agriculture as well as wetlands or flooded areas monitoring by using Global Navigation Satellite Systems reflected signals (GNSS-R) as a powerful technology for humidity or flooded mapping. The detection by GNSS-R is known to be much more reliable than visible/NIR imagery, and will be usable even under a cloud cover, during the night and even under vegetation (bushes, grass, trees) when passive remote sensing is not applicable. The main objective is to demonstrate a service chain in different use cases : pilot projects will be carried out in soil humidity mapping for agriculture (optimizing the water resource management), wetlands and flooded areas (risk management, flood-prone areas, damages evaluation). In order to meet the objectives, a GNSS-R receiver embedded into a small RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft System) will be developed and implemented into an operational chain to provide the service. GNSS-R technology aims at measuring the GNSS signals reflected on the ground, and, compared to the direct signals, permits a measurement of the soil humidity (from 0 to 100%) as well as flooded extend. The use of GALILEO signals will significantly improve the precision of mapping. The operational system will integrate three main axes of development: adapting the GNSS-R technology for the requirements, making a compact GNSS-R receiver and optimizing an existing RPAS. Using EGNOS and GALILEO in the project will also improve navigation capabilities of small RPAS (<4Kg) and contribute to the development of regulations for their integration in airspace. We assembled a consortium that addresses all aspects of the project : four SME specialized in GNSS receivers, GNSS-R technology, operational applications and dissemination, two labs for RPAS and GNSS-R technology. An advisory board composed of agronomy and environment specialists as well as end users will complete the skills of the consortium.

The purpose of the PASSport (Operational Platform managing a fleet of semi-autonomous drones exploiting GNSS high Accuracy and Authentication to improve Security & Safety in port areas) is to engineer and qualify a solution extending situational awareness based on aerial fixed/ rotary wing and underwater drones to improve safety and security in port areas. The need stems from the directive 2005/65/CE asking to complement surveillance systems for the whole port area, in order to significantly improve security and safety for daily operations implanted in port area. This result also in saving citizen lives ensuring a high and equal level of safety and security for all European ports. Around one thousand European ports fall within the scope of the directive. As a consequence, PASSport responds to the needs expressed by port authorities, harbour master and border control authorities which are active parties in the consortium and will be directly involved in the definition of the proposed solutions. The proposed solution is intended to complement already operational platforms by extending the surveillance perimeter using a fleet of drones to provide innovation and operational support to the recognition, management and analysis of safety and security aspects of daily operations with particular attention to: Pollution monitoring (safety) Support to e-navigation (safety) Critical buildings/ Infrastructures protection (security) Protection against non-cooperative small craft approaching the port areas (security) Underwater threats monitoring (security) The project is expected to activate commercialisation channels based on the novelty represented by the usage of a fleet of semi-automated drones integrating Galileo services (and other sensors) for a safe and efficient guidance, navigation and control (GNC) even in a challenging environment in presence of obstacles - including buildings and other ground assets - and potentially unfavourable weather conditions.