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SARA, a GSA-funded project developing a turnkey solution for search and rescue (SAR) and surveillance operations, has been successfully tested at a recent football match. Based on the test, the economic viability of using the solution for event filming and monitoring/surveying is currently being investigated.

The SARA project is working on engineering and commercialising a tethered drone-based SAR and surveillance solution using an already existing prototype. The solution is able to guarantee continuous operations by means of a patented cable used for power supply and as a secure data link. For drone navigation and control, as well as for target identification and localisation, SARA uses high-accuracy Galileo-enabled GNSS receivers.

Successful test

The test was carried out continuously for the duration of the football match, which offered an interesting test case requiring continuous surveillance over a two-hour period. The SARA terminal was set to monitor several players, whose positions were tracked over time. The footballers were localised using a Galileo-enabled GNSS receiver installed on the drone, which provided a reference, along with a computer vision algorithm that transformed pixels into 2D geographical positions.

Watch this: SARA for Football

A profile of the positions (one per second) was created and compared with the video material. “This qualitative test revealed interesting results in terms of target identification (the right player) and localisation within the football field zone, and also in terms of the limited cost of the equipment used,” said Marco Nisi, Head of Integrated GNSS Solutions at project partner Sistematica.

“This use case is now being studied to evaluate the economic viability of using the solution to film at events and to carry out monitoring and surveillance operations,” he said.

Range of applications

Maritime SAR is the primary target market but, as the football match test has shown, the solution has potential applications in other areas. One such area is security surveillance, particularly with the aim of preventing trespassing and detecting potential threats in open spaces. Possible use cases include monitoring and surveillance of building sites and other infrastructure, and security surveillance at major sporting events.

Read this: KAUST wins GSA Special Prize at ERL Emergency Local Tournament 2019

“In particular, as a very promising side market, the SARA team is continuing to address the technological challenges and to experiment with the business model with a view to reaching the sports domain as a provider of event surveillance management solutions and livestream broadcasting,” Nisi said.

The solution will be further tested in Szczecin, Poland in September 2019, where the drone will be operated on board a vessel to simulate a maritime SAR scenario. In this case, the drone will act as a vertical pylon and will be set up in “follow the ship” mode, making it possible to survey and identify and locate targets with an extended coverage of several nautical miles.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

SARA, a GSA-funded project developing a turnkey solution for search and rescue (SAR) and surveillance operations, has been successfully tested at a recent football match. Based on the test, the economic viability of using the solution for event filming and monitoring/surveying is currently being investigated.

The SARA project is working on engineering and commercialising a tethered drone-based SAR and surveillance solution using an already existing prototype. The solution is able to guarantee continuous operations by means of a patented cable used for power supply and as a secure data link. For drone navigation and control, as well as for target identification and localisation, SARA uses high-accuracy Galileo-enabled GNSS receivers.

Successful test

The test was carried out continuously for the duration of the football match, which offered an interesting test case requiring continuous surveillance over a two-hour period. The SARA terminal was set to monitor several players, whose positions were tracked over time. The footballers were localised using a Galileo-enabled GNSS receiver installed on the drone, which provided a reference, along with a computer vision algorithm that transformed pixels into 2D geographical positions.

Watch this: SARA for Football

A profile of the positions (one per second) was created and compared with the video material. “This qualitative test revealed interesting results in terms of target identification (the right player) and localisation within the football field zone, and also in terms of the limited cost of the equipment used,” said Marco Nisi, Head of Integrated GNSS Solutions at project partner Sistematica.

“This use case is now being studied) to evaluate the economic viability of using the solution to film at events and to carry out monitoring and surveillance operations,” he said.

Range of applications

Maritime SAR is the primary target market but, as the football match test has shown, the solution has potential applications in other areas. One such area is security surveillance, particularly with the aim of preventing trespassing and detecting potential threats in open spaces. Possible use cases include monitoring and surveillance of building sites and other infrastructure, and security surveillance at major sporting events.

Read this: KAUST wins GSA Special Prize at ERL Emergency Local Tournament 2019

“In particular, as a very promising side market, the SARA team is continuing to address the technological challenges and to experiment with the business model with a view to reaching the sports domain as a provider of event surveillance management solutions and livestream broadcasting,” Nisi said.

The solution will be further tested in Szczecin, Poland in September 2019, where the drone will be operated on board a vessel to simulate a maritime SAR scenario. In this case, the drone will act as a vertical pylon and will be set up in “follow the ship” mode, making it possible to survey and identify and locate targets with an extended coverage of several nautical miles.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

SARA, a GSA-funded project developing a turnkey solution for search and rescue (SAR) and surveillance operations, has been successfully tested at a recent football match. Based on the test, the economic viability of using the solution for event filming and monitoring/surveying is currently being investigated.

The SARA project is working on engineering and commercialising a tethered drone-based SAR and surveillance solution using an already existing prototype. The solution is able to guarantee continuous operations by means of a patented cable used for power supply and as a secure data link. For drone navigation and control, as well as for target identification and localisation, SARA uses high-accuracy Galileo-enabled GNSS receivers.

Successful test

The test was carried out continuously for the duration of the football match, which offered an interesting test case requiring continuous surveillance over a two-hour period. The SARA terminal was set to monitor several players, whose positions were tracked over time. The footballers were localised using a Galileo-enabled GNSS receiver installed on the drone, which provided a reference, along with a computer vision algorithm that transformed pixels into 2D geographical positions.

Watch this: SARA for Football

A profile of the positions (one per second) was created and compared with the video material. “This qualitative test revealed interesting results in terms of target identification (the right player) and localisation within the football field zone, and also in terms of the limited cost of the equipment used,” said Marco Nisi, Head of Integrated GNSS Solutions at project partner Sistematica.

“This use case is now being studied) to evaluate the economic viability of using the solution to film at events and to carry out monitoring and surveillance operations,” he said.

Range of applications

Maritime SAR is the primary target market but, as the football match test has shown, the solution has potential applications in other areas. One such area is security surveillance, particularly with the aim of preventing trespassing and detecting potential threats in open spaces. Possible use cases include monitoring and surveillance of building sites and other infrastructure, and security surveillance at major sporting events.

Read this: KAUST wins GSA Special Prize at ERL Emergency Local Tournament 2019

“In particular, as a very promising side market, the SARA team is continuing to address the technological challenges and to experiment with the business model with a view to reaching the sports domain as a provider of event surveillance management solutions and livestream broadcasting,” Nisi said.

The solution will be further tested in Szczecin, Poland in September 2019, where the drone will be operated on board a vessel to simulate a maritime SAR scenario. In this case, the drone will act as a vertical pylon and will be set up in “follow the ship” mode, making it possible to survey and identify and locate targets with an extended coverage of several nautical miles.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).

ELPROMA, a Polish manufacturer of NTP/PTP time servers, has won a seven-figure US$ contract to supply Rubidium IEEE1588 NTS-5000 servers to support a country-scale modern smart grid system in Asia. The servers, which are custom built (designated “Safe Time”), incorporate a modified version of the cyber-security TSI#2 solution developed as part of the Horizon 2020 ‘DEMonstrator of EGNSS services based on Time Reference Architecture’ (Demetra) project, in which ELPROMA participated in 2015-2016.

While it is not yet possible, for reasons of commercial secrecy, to name the client country, we can reveal that the contract is for a total of over 350 mostly advanced Rubidium-class PTP IEEE1588 time servers. These servers will ensure the cyber security and robust nanosecond synchronisation of the country-scale electricity grid, which is in the process of transition from a classical grid to a state-of-the-art IEC61850 system capable of safely distributing power throughout the country.

Read this:  Time as a service with Galileo

“This is the biggest one-off deal of its kind so far,” Tomasz Widomski, a member of the ELPROMA Supervisory Board, said. “For comparison, a stock exchange or a new 5G telecom network requires approximately 10-15 grandmaster PTP IEEE1588 servers to operate efficiently, so 350 is a really huge number of servers,” he said. Due to the server volume, the system requires a special management and monitoring facility to ensure the accuracy and time domain operation of the IEC61850 smart grid.

Nanosecond accuracy

The PTP servers will be customised according to the specific needs of the client to ensure reliable, country-scale synchronisation and time domain operation. The Demetra TSI#2 solution is a core element of the new smart grid, with a modified version of the solution implemented inside the NTS-5000 dual oscillator servers (Rubidium and OCXO), helping to ensure the delivery of nanosecond accuracy and top-level cyber security. The key is real-time auditing, which ensures that everything stays stable during power distribution management.

“ELPROMA is the first supplier in the world of this level of synchronisation and this size of system, which will be more and more popular once Industry 4.0 technology becomes a reality,” Widomski said, adding that Galileo accuracy is a key element for improving security. “The ELPROMA servers are multi-constellation and are able to select the GNSS system that they operate with, however Galileo is the preferred one, with GPS, BaiDou and Glonass as a backup,” he said.

Watch this: Demetra – Time as a Service

ELPROMA is currently in the process of delivering the servers to the client and these will be gradually deployed over the next two to three months. “It is expected that the system will be fully operational at the end of 2019,” Widomski said.

Demetra solution

ELPROMA was member of Demetra Horizon 2020 project (2015-2016), which developed a prototype of an EGNSS-based time disseminator that provides time certification, redundancy, resilience, integrity and improved accuracy, while validating the concept of ‘time as a service’.

The Demetra developers engaged with the main timing and synchronisation users, including energy companies, to ensure that their needs were incorporated into the project design. The demonstrator was built around the concept of a common core infrastructure hosting advanced time services. It was deployed as an open and scalable architecture with common interfaces, making it easier to integrate new services and enabling service developers to focus on performance at user level.

The ELPROMA contract is a good example of how EGNSS-based innovations, such as the solutions created by Demetra, are driving economic growth and job creation in Europe. “The servers are 100% manufactured in the EU, in Poland,” Widomski said.

Media note: This feature can be republished without charge provided the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is acknowledged as the source at the top or the bottom of the story. You must request permission before you use any of the photographs on the site. If you republish, we would be grateful if you could link back to the GSA website (http://www.gsa.europa.eu).