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Introduction

Space as a resource has become a great enabler for countless entrepreneurs, businesses and decision makers. With over 6000 satellites orbiting and monitoring the Earth, there is an abundance of spatial information being generated on a daily basis.

Needless to say, the applications and use cases that arise from such a rich source of information are countless.

But in today’s article, we’re going to look at a company that helps you smartly navigate through this sea of information (or sky of information to be more precise) and provide you with actionable insights for deployment and decision making. SkyServe!

Read the full article to know more about their Insight-as-a-Service model and their latest partnership with Ellipsis Drive.

SkyServe: Insight-as-a-Service for Smart Decision Making

SkyServe is an India and US-based NewSpace company that has created an Insight-as-a-Service platform that enables users with smart decision making.

But what does Insight-as-a-Service mean in this context?

It’s simple! Contrary to the traditional NewSpace data flow, SkyServe has built a platform that processes and deduces insights on the satellite itself, instead of sending TBs of raw data down to ground stations for processing. 

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SkyServe strives to employ data processing algorithms and models on the edge to link insights down to earth instead of a huge binary blob. Makes sense right? Why send down the entire haystack when you can send the needle itself? As a decision maker, more data is not always better. What you need is the insight you were looking for. The rest is Noise. This is something that SkyServe understands. 

As such, captured data is processed on the edge and feeds directly into end user’s data models in near real time. This way, timely and accurate predictions can be made. Solutions that are created this way are more scalable and affordable too as a result.

SkyServe is constantly expanding the satellites it works with as well as the EO network that helps them grow their coverage, impact and speed of delivery.

Below are some of the popular use cases - 

Change Detection - Conventional methods involve compulsory data procurement, processing and archiving. With edge-processing, change detection alerts users only when a change they have subscribed to occurs, with an option to download any image only if required.This is being used in identifying change in land cover, deforestation trends, flooding risks and studying urban growth.

Asset Monitoring - Today, assets are only being surveyed - using a combination of drones and archive satellite images. Edge-processing allows continual monitoring of assets for monitoring and progress-tracking purposes on a budget. This allows for centralized monitoring which can shorten a project’s timeline significantly.

Agriculture - AgriTech uses multiple satellite-based spectral indices to ascertain the health of crop fields across large geographies, but needs to procure images first. This use-case using edge-processing can deliver NDVI, SAVI, ARVI etc as per the customer's needs for their farm alone - without having to deal with the raw data.

Partnership with  Ellipsis Drive

As a company, Ellipsis Drive is a big advocate of optimization, synergies and collaboration. We are constantly looking for ways to improve the NewSpace data chain and add value to every stakeholder within the ecosystem by making spatial data management and consumption easy. 

Ellipsis Drive sees eye to eye with SkyServe’s Insight-as-a-Service business model and the value that it has to offer.

Ellipsis Drive (ED) is used by SkyServe as a visualization tool for viewing and sharing edge-computed results with their customers and PoC partners. ED’s cloud powered web viewer is ideal for such use cases as it allows SkyServe’s spatial insights to be viewed by third parties without having the need to download heavy files or have a strong technical background. 

Going forward, SkyServe also plans to use the drive as a way to enhance data consumption and integration for their end users. Data would directly feed into ED from the satellite constellations they work with.

This would allow SkyServe’s customers to experience value from their insights straight away. We expect this to improve SkyServe’s customer success and sales operations tremendously.

Conclusion

The NewSpace industry is still at its early stages. Companies such as SkyServe are finding new ways to add value to the data chain and to the stakeholders involved. Ellipsis Drive is happy to be a part of this journey and is committed to pushing the boundaries of our industry.